LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

SlaelfC-(a93 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



^■" 



THE 

Great Events of History 

FROM THE CREATION OF MAN TILL 
THE PRESENT TIME W 



WILLIAM FRANCIS COLLIER, LL.D. 

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN 

EDITED BY 

OLIVER R. WILLIS, AJ.L 



/ 



.V 



->^ 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES E. MERRILL & CO. 

52 AND 54 Lafayette Place 




Copyright. i8go, by 
CHARLES b.. MERRILL & CO. 



Press of J. T- Little & Co., 
Aator Place, New York. 






PREFACE. 



In preparing a third American Edition of " The Great Events 
of History," it seems desirable to bring together the information 
about the character and scope of the work scattered through the 
prefaces to former editions. Dr. Collier's plan of grouping his 
facts about the most significant event in each period has many 
obvious advantages, but its comparative novelty makes it needful 
that a few words of explanation be given at the outset. 

The object of both author and editor has been to present in a 
series of pictures, each with its dominant point or points of inter- 
est, the nine great periods into which human history has been 
divided. To these, in the present edition, a tenth has been, added, 
in order to bring the story down to the present day. To pre- 
serve the characteristics of the book, it has been found necessary 
to depart, at times, from strict chronological sequence. Thus, in 
order to give a united view of the progress of affairs in England 
and America, from the discovery by Columbus, the Old World 
story is interrupted, and is not resumed until we reach the end of 
the American War of 1812. Then we return to the Europe of the 
sixteenth century, to note the rise of the Dutch Republic and the 
events of the' Thirty Years' War. 

To obviate any difficulty or inconvenience that might arise from 
such lapses of chronological sequence, we have in the present edi- 
tion added a Chronological Table, with references to the page 
wherein each occurrence will be found mentioned. 

The book has been extended, in the various American editions, 
to nearly double its original size. The additions include the whole 
of the First Period, and of the Tenth ; the chapters on American 
History ; those of the great events of English History, and the 
valuable articles descriptive of life and manners in leading coun- 
tries. To the present edition has been appended a summary of 
the world's progress since the close of the Franco-Prussian War; 
and there has been prefixed, by way of introduction, a general 
view of Ancient History, based on the latest discoveries in Chal- 
dea, Assyria, and Egypt, and the conclusions drawn therefrom 
by the most eminent living scholars. 

White Plains, N. Y., 1890. 



FEATURES 



GREAT EVENTS OF HISTORY, 



TO WHICH THE ATTENTION OF TEACHERS IS DRAWN. 



1. The " Great Events of History," as we now present it, gives in a 
series of pictures a connected view of the entire historic period, from the 
Creation of Man to the present time. 

2. It meets a want, which teachers generally feel, in providing a general 
history which is not so prolix as to weary and discourage the pupil ; at the 
same time it is not so bald as to be uninteresting. 

3. It is designed to introduce the subject to the pupil in a manner so 
pleasant as to obviate the usual objections to the study of history in schools. 

4. One of the objects to be attained by the study of general history, is 
to create such a love for the subject as to induce the learner to read par- 
ticular history. This the '' Great Events" is eminently calculated to do. 

5. A new and very interesting feature is the description of the life and 
manners in leading countries. This feature, alone, is sufficient to make 
the book desirable. 

6. It gives a brief account of the settlement of the New World, and the 
American wars, including the late Civil War in the United States. 

7. The causes of the seven weeks war between Austria and Prussia, by 
which Prussia gained the ascendency in Germany, are stated in a single 
short chapter. 

8. The American editor has aimed to produce a pleasant, interesting 
book, which may be used as a manual of history, or for a class reading- 
book. 



OOl^TEI^TS. 



riRST PERIOD. 

FROM THE CREATION OF MAN TO THE CKUCIFIXION. 

Chap. Page 

Introduction ^ 

I. Creation of Man ^3 

Fall of Man ^^ 

IL Deluge ^^ 

Babel ^'^ 

Social Life of the Ancients— Job 18 

III, Call of Abraham *^ 

History of Joseph ""■ 

rV. Exodus '*'' 

Progress of the Israelites after entering Canaan 24 

Social Life of the Hebrews 25 

Social Life under the Kingdom 28 

Social Life after the Eeign of Solomon 31 

Contemporary Nations 33 

Egypt J 

Assyria 

Babylon and Media 36 

Phoenicia °" 

Carthage *" 

Greece ^^ 

Rome ^ 



SECOND PERIOD. 

FKOM THE OPBNINQ OP THB CHBISTIAN EBA TO THE PALL OP THE WESTERN 

EMPIRE. 

I. The Crucifixion ^ 

II. The Siege of Jerusalem. . ^ 

IIL E^rly Persecution of the Christian Church 49 

IV. The Reign of Constantine the Great ^^ 

V. The Fall of the Western Empire 60 

VI. Domestic Life in Imperial Rome 65 

Great Names of the Second Period ''" 



6 CONTENTS. 

THIRD PERIOD. 

FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO TUE ACCESSION OF CUAI(I.K- 

MAONB. 

Chap. Page 

I. The Age of Justinian. 72 

II. The Growth of the Papacy 76 

III. Mahomet and his CreeJ 80 

IV. Merovingians and their Mayors 86 

V. Barbarous Races of Infant Europe 87 

Great Names of the Third Period 92 



FOURTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THE SEQINNING OF THE CRUSADES. 

I. Charlemagne 94 

II. Moslems in the West and the Bast lOO-' 

III. The Rise of the Romano-Germanic Empire 102 

IV. The Byzantine Court 105 

V. The Norsemen 108 

VI. Life at the Court of Charlemagne Ill 

Great Names of the Fourth Period 114 

FIFTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADES TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 8WMB 
INDEPENDENCE. 

I. The Crusades US 

II. The Crusades (continued) 121, 

in. The Albigenses 126 

IV. Conquest of Prussia by the Teutonic Order 130 

V. The Swiss War of Independence 132 

VI. Chivalry 136 

Great Names of the Fifth Period 141 

SIZTH PERIOD. 

riHIBFLT FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SWISS INDEPENDENCE TO THE BEFORXA- 

TION. 

I. Italy in the Middle Ages — 143 

II. The Ottoman Turks 151 

in. The Expulsion of the Moors from Spain 156 

IV. England 160' 

V. Saxon Rule 163 

VI. Norman Line 168 

VII. Houses of Lancaster and Yoik 173 

VIII. House of Tudor 177 

IX. House of Stuart 181 

X. House of Brunswick 187 



CONTENTS. ^ 7 

Chap. Page 

XI. Discovery and Conquest of America 194 

XII. Settlement of America 199 

Xm. American Eevolution 205 

XIV. American Eevolution (continued) 210 

XV. American Revolution (continued) 212 

XVI. American Eevolution (continued) 215 

XVII. American Eevolution (continued) 218 

XVIII. War of 1813 221 

XIX. Life in Italy and Spain at the close of the Middle Ages 226 

SEVENTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE BEFOEMATION TO THE CLOSB OF THE THIRTY TEAKS' VTAB. 

I. The Eef ormation 232 

n. The Emperor Charles V 239 

in. Tlie Else of the Dutch Eepublic 246 

rV. The Huguenots 250 

V. Cardinal Eichelieu 256 

VI. The Thirty Years' War 260 

VII. Life in Gei-many during the Age of the Reformation 268 

Great Names of the Seventh Period 274 

EISHTH FEBIOD. 

TKOM THE END OP THB THIRTY YEARS' 'WAR TO THE BBGINNINQ OP THE PUBNCH 

REVOLUTION. 

L Louis XIV. of France 278 

Genealogy of the Bourbon Family— Second Tree 278 

n. Peter the Great of Eussia, and Charles XII. of Sweden 289 

m. Frederick II. (the Great) of Prussia 295 

rV. Life in France under Louis XIV 303 

Great Names of the Eighth Period 307 

NINTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE BEGINNING OP THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

I. French Eevolution 310 

II. Napoleon Bonaparte 318 

III. Continental Europe in 1815 ; 332 

Great Names of the Ninth Period 341 

TENTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE CLOSE OP THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, 1870, TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

I. American Civil War 344 

II. American Civil War (continued) 350 

III. Causes which gave rit^e to the Franco-Prussian War 353' 

IV. French and German War, 1870. , 354 

The Pope's Letter to the King of Prussia 356 



8 # CONTENTS. 

Chap. Page 

King William's Eeply to the Pope 356 

Napoleon's Proclamation 356 

Secret Treaty 358 

Benedetti's Denial 359 

Ollivier's Denial 361 

V. Franco-German War (continued) 361 

Napoleon's Second Proclamation 362 

King William's Proclamation 362 

VI. French and Prussian War (continued) ; 363 

Battle near Metz, August 14th, 1870 364 

Mars la Tour, August 16th, 1870 364 

Battle of Gravelotte, August 18th, 1870 365 

Battle of Sedan, August 23d, 1870 366 

Surrender of Napoleon, September 1st, 1870 366 

VII. Battle of Coulmiers 367 

Capitulation of Metz, October 27th, 1870 367 

Bazaine's Vindication 367 

Conclusion 369 

Result 369 

VIII. France 371 

Czar and Nihilism 373 

President Garfield 373 

President Grant 374 

Brazil 374 

Anti-Chinese Legislation 375 

Boycotting 376 

Stanley and Livingstone 377 

Gordon, Charles George 381 

Emin 385 

Ship Canals 3^6 

Electricity 388 

Bridge, East River and others 390 

Eiffel Tower 391 

Great Names of the Tenth Period 393 

Important Events 394^ 

Index... 396' 



THE 

GREAT EVENTS OF HISTORY. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

At the beginning of history we find, in the fertile Delta of the Nile, 
and in Lower Chaldea, near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, 
which were at that time far apart, two dense and long-established popu- 
lations, partly gathered together in cities, and possessing an advanced 
material civilization. How these communities arose we may perhaps im- 
agine ; but we can claim no positive knowledge on the subject. With 
their general characteristics, their merits and demerits, we are, how- 
ever, becoming, year by year, better acquainted. The glories of ancient 
Egypt have always been evident, thanks to her huge Pyramids and 
temples of calcareous rock which grows harder by exposure. But on 
account of the perishable character of the materials of which the Chal- 
dean monuments were constructed, the early civilization of the peoples of 
the Mesopotamian Valley had been almost forgotten. 

About the middle of the present century, 1842, European travelers and 
historians became interested in the remains and ruins found along the 
lower reaches of the great rivers of western Asia. Among the first, M. 
Botta, French consul at Mosul, who made excavations in a mound of 
debris, brought to light the ruins of an Assyrian palace, beautiful sculp- 
tures, and interesting inscriptions. Other explorers, Layard, Loftus, 
Taylor, De Sarzec, followed, and opened tell after tell — as the mounds 
are called — finding everywhere stupendous walls and paved courts, sculp- 
tured slabs of alabaster, artistic works in bronze, gold, silver, ivory, and 
especially a great number of inscriptions cut in stone and terra-cotta. 
These inscriptions are in characters called Cuneiform (" wedge-shaped"), 
having been cut in the stone, or stamped upon the clay, before baking, 
with a triangular chisel ; each stroke of the tool made a mark more or 
less like a wedge. Some of these inscriptions were in Assyrian, a lan- 
guage like the Hebrew ; and when transported to Europe, were deci- 
phered by scholars like Rawlinson, Delitzsch, Menant, and Lenormant. 
Others, however, especially those from the more southern tells, near 
the shore of the Persian Gulf — the last to be translated — were in a differ- 
ent tongue, and for a long time were a puzzle to the most experienced 
savants. 



lO • INTRODUCTORY. 

A large collection of terra-cotta tablets, many of them badly broken, 
had been found by Layard in a mound at Koyunjik, and had been stored 
away in the British Museum. The late Mr. George Smith, who was em- 
ployed to make engravings of the inscriptions, undertook to set this col- 
lection in order. In doing so he remarked that some of the tablets con- 
tained each two inscriptions in opposite columns, one in the unknown 
tongue, the other in Assyrian. He conjectured that the latter was a 
translation of the former ; and, prosecuting his researches, he discovered 
a large number of these double texts, and even grammars and dictionaries 
of the more ancient language, written in Assyrian. It turned out that 
this collection of tablets was the library of an Assyrian king, Asshurbani- 
pal, who lived about 650 B.C. That monarch had caused to be tran- 
scribed and translated, as we have seen, documents in a much older tongue 
than his own, just as learned men in the present day busy themselves 
in translating the works of Homer and other ancient writers. There 
were poems, hymns, and incantations ; but there were discovered be- 
sides, in various mounds of Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, inscriptions 
on statues and on cylinders, usually of terra-cotta, which referred to his- 
torical events, and in a few cases gave a recognizable date. Names of 
kings and of cities also frequently occur, and many of these are found to 
agree with names given in the first chapters of the Bible. Thus it hap- 
pens that we are now able to point to the actual sites of the cities of 
Accad, Ur, Erech, and others which were inhabited long before the time 
of the patriarch Abraham ; to tell a great deal about their people, to 
describe their buildings, and to trace the outlines of their history. 

The most ancient of these wonderful ruins are found in the great Mes- 
opotamian Valley, along the lower reaches of the great rivers. Upon these 
plains, where now reigns the silence of death, many centuries ago teemed 
a busy multitude. 

The accumulation of silts and sand deposited by the frequent over- 
flows of the Tigris and Euphrates, during the long ages of the past, have 
not only buried these cities, but extended the plain out into the sea more 
than a hundred miles. 

Though these great cities in the day of their prosperity were so near 
the Persian Gulf as to be seaports, nothing has been found to indicate 
that they were inhabited by a maritime people. 

Their industries seem to have been confined to agricultural pursuits 
and such domestic manufactures as met the needs of their civilization. 

They manufactured beautiful textile fabrics, were skillful workers in 
metals, and made fine pottery. Their architecture was massive. Burned 
bricks, slabs, and blocks of baked clay constituted their building materials. 

Among other structures of massive masonry that have been exhumed. 



INTRODUCTORY. II 

are huge pyramidal structures, from the summit of which it is supposed 
lights were placed to illuminate their cities ; these were carried to a 
height, to be above the periodical overflow of the great rivers. 

Their principal buildings wei-e also of brick, faced sometimes with 
carved stone, but much oftener with glazed terra-cotta, decorated with 
beautiful patterns, and strange figures of their gods and heroes, in exqui- 
sitely chosen colors. 

Their language was of the type called " agglutinative," in which 
compound words are formed out of simple words by " glueing" them 
together, as it were, without modification. The modern Turkish is a 
language of this sort. Their features, as we see from the many fine 
statues that have been exhumed,* were of a decidedly Mongolian or 
Tartar cast. In fact, they belonged to an extremely ancient race, the 
Turanian, of which the Chinese, Mongols, Tartars, and Turks are the 
best-known modern representatives ; and which, in prehistoric times, 
overspread most of Asia and all south-western Europe. Everywhere 
they seem to have been an ingenious and industrious people, to whom 
we probably owe our divisions of time into months and days and hours, 
our earliest weights and measures, and our first astronomical observations. 
But they appear to have been incapable, by themselves, of any great 
progress in morals and religion. 

In Egypt, at the same time, within the narrow bounds of the Nile 
Valley, a similar civilization had reached a yet higher degree of develop- 
ment. The ancient Egyptians, like the Turanians of Chaldea, built 
cities, but with temples and palaces of stone. These cities were, at first, 
independent of one another, each under its own chief, like the cities of 
the Turanian Chaldeans. But they early submitted to a single king, 
and formed a strong monarchy, while their neighbors were still a loose 
confederation. 

Between these two highly civilized peoples, on the sandy peninsula of 
Arabia, dwelt a quite different race, living in tents, having little or no 
soil fit for cultivatioji, building no cities, constantly wandering in search 
of pasture for the flocks and herds which were their subsistence. They 
were much less advanced in the arts than cither the Egyptians or the 
Accadians,f but had purer religious notions and a higher sense of honor. 
They were also, it is likely, braver soldiers. These were the Shemites, 
afterwards modified into Arabs, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and other tribes 
and nations. 



♦Notably at Tello, by M. de Sarzec, whose finds are now in the Lou-vtc, Paris, 
t So called from their city, Accad, to distinguish them from other Turanians and 
from later Chaldeans of mixed race. 



1 2 INTROD UCTOR V. 

At a period to which no certain date can be assigned, Shemite tribes 
made their way into Chaldea. Some of their members, quitting the pas- 
toral mode of life, settled in the cities, and soon rose to power. Sargon 
I., who united under his sway most of the Chaldean cities, was a Shemite. 
Others, like the patriarch Abraham, the progenitor of the Hebrew peo- 
ple, preferred to continue their former mode of existence outside of city 
limits. Shemites also entered Egypt by the Isthmus of Suez ; but, owing 
probably to the stronger political organization of the Egyptians, did not 
so easily acquire power there. 

About the year 2200 before Christ, the earliest date which 

2200 can, with certainty, be assigned to a historical event, the 
B.C. Shemite-Accadian rule in Chaldea was overturned by a wilder 
Turanian nation, the Elamites, who descended from the 
mountain chain that separates Chaldea from Persia. This invasion 
may have been the cause of Abraham's departure from Ur, his journey 
with his tribe to Haran, far in the north, and then westward into 
Canaan. There, the Bible tells us, he inflicted a defeat on the King 
of the Elamites, Chedorlaomer, or Khudar-Lagomar, as his name is given 
in the inscriptions. 

This Elamite conquest of Chaldea appears to have had very far-reach- 
ing results. It broke violently into the two great civilizations, in danger 
of stagnation, and inaugurated an era of war, of turbulence, and of rapid 
change. It may be regarded as the centra] epoch of this very early period 
of the world's history. 

It precipitated on Egypt a great body of Shemitic tribes, which, joining 
with the Shemites already in that country, under Turanian leaders, sub- 
jugated the Egyptians, and established what is known as the Hyksos rule 
in Egypt. Of these Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, as they are also called, 
very little trace has, until recently, been found on Egyptian monuments. 
It was even supposed that they were so barbarous that they left no me- 
morials of their rule behind them. But the excavations of Mr. Petrie 
and M. Mariette at Tanis in 1884, and those, still more extensive, of 
M. Naville at Bubastis in 1888-9, have brought to light a number of 
Hyksos monuments, which show that in their case the usual relations 
of Turanian and Shemitic peoples were reversed, for the Hyksos royal 
statues are as distinctly Turanian in features as the earliest Accadian 
statues of chiefs, made before the period of Shemitic influence in Chaldea. 
It was probably during the reign of one of these kings that Abraham 
went to Egypt, and under another Joseph was made prime minister. 



THE 

GREAT EVENTS OF HISTORY. 



FIRST PERIOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

Biblical narrative of creation— Pall— Deluge— Locality of the garden— Babel. 

Thkre are no written records of man's history, covering the period 
which elapsed between his creation and the beginning of the Christian 
era, except those of Moses and Herodotus. The writings of Herodotus 
take in a period of 400 years, immediately preceding the 300 years before 
the birtii of Christ. Hence, as far as any written record of man's history 
previous to that time is concerned, we are indebted to the Bible. 

A very brief outline of this history, based upon the biblical narrative, 
is presented in the first few pages of this work. The Bible tells us that 
" in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and that the 
earth passed through successive changes which transformed an unshapely 
mass to its present condition of beauty and fitness. 

Moses makes the creation of man the central point and crowning act 
of all this wonderful work. 

Man having been created, means were employed for his occupation. In 
order to develop his mind and body activity w^as necessary. 

He was to dress and keep the garden, to subdue the lower animals, 
study them, and subject them to his control and use. 

Distinguished from all other created beings around him by the gift of 
speech, he was enabled to classify and name the animals, hold converse 
with his wife, and engage in oral acts of praise and worship of his 
Heavenly Father. 



14 



GREAT EVENTS 



The locality of the Garden of Eden is believed to have been in the 
highlands of Asia Minor, near the sources of the Rivers Euphrates and 
Tigris. 

The -whole district drained by these rivers is represented by travel- 
lers as one of surpassing beauty. Mountains rise, by easy slopes, to the 
height of 5,000 feet ; their sides are clothed with gigantic forest trees, 
underneath which the box, bay, and rhododendron flourish. 

The valleys and lowlands are studded with villages, and checkered by 
orchards, vineyards, and gardens, yielding both the cereals of the temper- 
ate zones and the fruits of the tropics. 

In the eastern part of this charming district is Lake Van. This lake is 
described by travellers as follows : 

" The shores of Lake Van (a noble sheet of water, 240 miles round) are 
singularly fine. They are bright with poplar, tamarisk, myrtles, and 
oleanders, whilst numerous verdant islands, scattered over its placid 
bosom, lend to it the enchantment of fairy land. In one direction the 
gardens cover a space seven or eight miles long, and four miles broad. 
The climate is temperate, and sky almost always bright and clear. To 
the southeast of the lake extends the plain of Solduz, presenting in one 
part an unbroken surface of groves, orchards, vineyards, gardens, and 
villages. The same description is applicable to the tract extending along 
the Araxes, which, for striking mountain scenery, interspersed with rich 
valleys, can scarcely be equalled. This district accords, in every respect, 
with the best notions we can form of the cradle of the human race." 

Here, say the Armenians, was the Vale of Eden. On the side of 
Mount Ararat, at no great distance from this, the ark rested ; and here, 
also, the vine was first cultivated by Noah. It is impossible to say 
whether further investigation in this comparatively unknown district will 
ever guide us nearer to the spot where the Lord planted the garden ; but 
there can be no doubt that these plains, lakes, and islands must have 
T;iven birth to the images of Elysian fields and Fortunate islands that con- 
tinued, age after age, to gild the traditions of the world.* 



The Fall of Man. — This expression signifies the loss of the innocence 
and perfection with which he was endowed at his creation. 

The Fall was the consequence of disobedience. 

Man, having been created and placed in the garden, was allowed to use 
the fruits of all the trees except one — The Tree of Knowledge. Of the 
fruit of this he was forbidden to eat. 

• For an account of Creation, sec first and second cbapters of Genesia, 



OF HISTORY. 



IS 



Bat he was left t4 exercise his free will. Satan entered into a serpent, 
empowered it with the gift of speech, sought out Eve, and persuaded her 
'-Q eat of the forbidden fruit. She, astonished at hearing the serpent 
speak, listened, and as he told her that the eating of the fruit would in- 
crease her knowledge, she finally consented, and after partaking of the 
fruit herself, took some to Adam, who also ate. 

This act of disobedience entailed upon Adam's descendants a sinful 
nature, denominated by theologians, original sin. 

For this act the heretofore happy pair were driven from the garden. 
The earth was cursed, and they doomed to labor, and endurance of pain. 

From that time they, with all their descendants, were liable to death 

Milton thus describes the momentous event : 

" Of man's disobedience, aud the frnit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe." 
Eve's act — 

"... her rash hand, iu evil hour, 
Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat. 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat. 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost." 

Adam's Act — 

" Earth trembled from her entrails, as again 
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan ; 
Sky lowered, aud muttering thunder, some sad drop« 
Wept at completing of the mortal sin 
Original " 

At what period of the existence of our first parents their Fall occurred 
the inspired writer does not inform us. The fact is only stated. There 
is reason to infer that it occurred soon after their creation. 

Before the Fall they lived in the garden, whose enchanting beauty has 
already been described. Their employment was to dress, admire, and 
enjoy the lovely spot, and to praise and glorify their Maker. 

Having disobeyed, they were driven forth from the garden, and the 
ground, which before brought forth, spontaneously, an abundant supply 
of fruits to satisfy all their desires, became changed, and needed cultiva- 
tion to produce the food their desecrated bodies needed. 

" Adam and Eve went foilh into the wide world, carrying with them 
the fallen nature and corrupt tendencies which were the present fruit of 
their sin, but with faith in the promise of redemption." 

The chief object of their life was yet to be accomplished, the earth was 
to be peopled and subdued. The curse was accompanied by a prom- 



1 6 GREAT EVENTS 

ise. The toils of the man were to be rewarded by the fruits the earth 
would yield to cultivation ; and the woman, in her suifering, was con- 
soled by the hope of a Redeemer.* 



CHAPTER II. 

DELUGE, AND CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 

Cause of the flood — Describe the ark — Noah's age vrhen he entered the ark— How many pei 
sons were saved — How long they were shnt np in the ark — First acts on leaving the ark- 
Change of laws and privileges — God's promise not to destroy the world again by water- 
Babel, and its object — Where was the tower built — Confounding of tongues — Dispersion of 
mankind — Mode of government — Social life. 

DELUGE. 

The Deluge, or Flood, was an overflow of water upon the land, which 
covered the tops of the highest mountains, destroying all animal life. 

This event is described in the seventh chapter of Genesis. The reason 
for sending the flood is stated in the previous chapter. 

This remarkable occurrence took place about 1656 years after the 
< reation of man. 

Sin and wickedness had become so wonderful that God determined to 
destroy the whole race, except Noah and his family. 

Noah was directed to construct a vessel sufficiently large to accommo- 
date his family and such animals as he should need. In this vessel, called 
in the Bible the Ark, he embarked with his wife, three sons, and their 
wives, making in all eight souls. 

He took, according to Divine direction, clean beasts and birds by 
sevens, and of such as were not to be used for food or for sacrifice by 
pairs, with a supply of food for all. 

The age of Noah at the time he entered the ark was 600 years. When 
all had embarked, the ark was shut by the hand of God, and immediately 
the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the clouds sent forth 
torrents of water, which increased and bore up the ark. 

The Bible does not describe the terrific character of the consequences 
of such a storm. We are left to imagine the scenes that followed. The 
mountain streams must have swollen so suddenly as to forsake their 
channels and find new outlets, sweeping away, in their angry force, ham- 
lets, villages, and even cities, washing down hills, and undermining moun- 
tains. 

But, most prominent, there rises before the fancy a scene of terrible con- 

• For an account of the Fall, see third chapter of Genesis. 



OF HISTORY. 17 

flict — brawny men fighting with the tempest, carrying their families from 
height to height, but still pursued by the remorseless, unwearying foe. 

The next scene is one of defeat and death. 

Bleached and bloodless corpses float everywhere, like pieces of a wreck 
over the shoreless sea ; the poor babe, locked in the arms of the mother, 
having found even nature's refuge fail. 

Last of all, there is a scene of awful stillness and desolation, not one 
object being seen but the dull expanse of the ocean, nor one sound of life 
heard but the low moan of its surging waters. 

On the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. But 
nearly a year elapsed, after the mighty vessel grounded, before Noah 
emerged from this temporaiy prison. Immediately upon landing he 
erected an altar, and offered sacrifice to God for preserving him from the 
watery grave which had engulfed all mankind except his family, with 
which act, God being well pleased. He made a covenant with him, never 
again to destroy the world by flood, and to seal the promise, He set His 
bow in the cloud. 

Noah, as has been stated, on going "out of the ark, celebrated his deliv- 
erance by a burnt off'ering of all the kinds of clean beasts which he had 
preserved in the ark with him. 

The Lord accepted this sacrifice, and assured Noah that never again 
should the inhabitants of the world be destroyed by a deluge. The order 
of the seasons, and the produce of the earth, were secured by Divine 
promise to the end of the world's existence. Till that end man is to live 
under the dispensation of God's forbearance, and work out his full 
destiny.* 

BABEL. 

The next great event in man's history was the confusion of tongues, and 
the consequent dispersion of mankind into three great lingual families. 

On leaving the ark new privileges were granted, new laws imposed, 
and a new covenant made. In addition to the plants, all animals were 
allowed for food. They were forbidden to eat blood, and murder was 
made a capital offense. " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
blood be shed." 

We may infer that the sons of Noah, and their descendants, moved 
naturally towards the south, until, after many years, they reached and 
settled the plains south of Ararat ; until Assyria, the plains of Mesopo- 
tamia, and Chaldea swarmed with busy multitudes, pursuing the various 
avocations of life. 

♦ For ^u jiccount of the Flood, see the six'h, seventh, and eighth chapters of 
Genesis. 



1 8 GREA T E VENTS 

It was on the plains of Chaldea, south of Mesopotamia, that the mighty 
city of Babylon arose on the banks of the River Euphrates, where the in- 
habitants, in their pride, attempted to erect a tower that should reach to 
the heavens. This tower was, no doubt, intended to serve as a place 
from which to expose signals to call the people together, hence it was to 
be high enough to be seen from all parts of the plain. 

To humble their pride, and to people other sections by distribution, 
God arrested the work by confounding of tongues, so that when the work- 
men asked for brick the laborers brought mortar. It is not certain to how 
great an extent the confusion of tongues was brought ; but it is not be- 
lieved that each person spoke a different dialect from every other. But, 
on the other hand, there is reason to believe that the whole was divided 
into three great lingual divisions or families. 

One language had hitherto been spoken, supposed to be the Hebrew. 

A celebrated scholar. Sir Wm. Jones, believes that all the languages 
now spoken in the world may be traced to three great foundations — the 
Arabic, Sanscrit, and the Sclavonic. 

By this confusion of tongues concentration was prevented and emigra- 
tion secured, two great means of preserving the purity of the people and 
colonization of other sections. 

On the great plain south of Ararat, where this memorable event took 
place, there were several other large cities. Accad and Nineveh were 
among the most noted. 

Men now grouped together, from necessity, into tribes or families, com- 
posed of those who understood each other, sought new regions and neigh- 
borhoods where they might settle, and engage in the various departments 
of human industry then practiced. 

In that mild climate and generous soil men were greatly tempted to 
become shepherds and herdsmen, a mode of life at once simple and 
healthful, and one highly calculated to extend the borders of occupation, 
and increase the population. 

The government was patriarchal — a mode of government which seemed 
to have been especially acceptable to God, and well calculated to prevent 
centralization. 

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS — ^JOB. 

It would be utterly impossible, in any single picture, to present a view 
of the state of society during a period of so great extent, and embracing 
such a variety of nations and countries. We can but follow the example 
of the Bible itself, and make choice of a single spot, and a single family, 
to convey some idea of the life and manners of the age. It is probable 
that it was during this period that the patriarch Job lived, suffered, and 



OF HISTORY. ip 

triumphed. Job was probably a descendant of Shem ; his residence is 
said to have been " in the east " (Job i. 3) — the term usually applied to the 
district where the first settlement of men took place. (Gen. ii. 8 ; iii. 24 ; 
xi. 2.) The Sabeans and Chaldeans were his neighbors ; and at the time 
when he lived the knowledge of the True God seems to have been pre- 
served, without material corruption. The adoration of the heavenly 
bodies had begun to be practiced (Job xxxi. 26, 27), but there seems still 
to have been a general belief in one Almighty God. 

The picture of social life in the book of Job is in many respects ex- 
tremely beautiful. We dare not regard it as a sample of what was usual 
over the world, but rather as exhibiting the highest condition of social life 
that had been attained. There were even then cases of oppression, rob- 
bery, and murder ; but, for the most part, a fine patriarchal purity and 
simplicity prevailed. The rich and the poor met together, and to the dis- 
tressed and helpless the rich man's heart and hand were ever open. 

Note. — For a description of the Tower of Babel, see Genesis, eleventh 
chapter. 



CHAPTER III. 

CALL OF ABRAHAM, AND ACCOUNT OF JOSEPH. 

Abraham's birth — Age of Abraham when the Lord spoke to him — Promise to Abraham— Tha 
wanderings of Abraham — First battle — Age of Abraham at the birth of Isaac — Isaac's 
marriage — Birth of Esau and Jacob — Jacob buys the birthright and receives the- blessing — 
Jacob flees to his nncle in Mesopotamia — Serves his uncle fourteen years for his two 
daughters — Continues to reside with Laban after his marriage, and prospers— Sets out 
with his wives and flocks to return to his native country — Jacob's partiality for Joseph, 
the son of his younger wife?— Consequences of the partiality — Joseph sold into Egypt — His 
elevation in Egypt — The famine — Joseph's brothers go to Egypt to buy food — Joseph 
makes himself known to them — Jacob and his family move into Egypt — Kindly received by 
'ihe king — He settles with his family in Goshen. 

CALL OF ABRAHAM. 

The next most important event chronicled in the Mosaic history of man 
is the call of Abraham, ten generations after Noah. Abram was bom 
1996 B.C. Ur, a Chaldean city, was his birthplace. Terah, Abram's 
father, removed from Ur to Haran, in Mesopotamia. 

The Lord spake to Abram while residing in Haran, when he was 
seventy-five years old, and commanded him to leave his father's house, to 
separate himself from his kindred, to depart fi'om his country, and to go to 
a land that should be shown him. 

The Lord said to him, " I will make thee a great nation, and will bless 
thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will 



20 GREAT EVENTS 

bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 

Abram, in obedience to this command, set out with his wife Sarai, and 
his nephew Lot, taking with him his flocks and herds, and journeyed into 
the land of Canaan. Having arrived, his first act was to erect an altar, 
and sacrifice to the Lord. 

From this place he moved to the east of Bethel, and again built an altar 
and worshipped. 

A famine drove him from his new home into Egypt, where was an 
abundance of food. Having spent some time in the land of the Pharaohs, 
he returned to Canaan, greatly enriched by his sojourn in Egypt. 

Soon after the return from Egypt Lot separated himself from Abram, 
and settled in the valley of the Jordan, while Abram sought the hill 
country, and finally sat down in the neighborhood of the ancient city of 
Hebron. 

The king of Chaldea made a raid on the cities of Canaan, and carried 
off Lot, with other prisoners. 

This fact coming to the knowledge of Abram, he immediately set out to 
rescue his relation. Having over three hundred servants, he attacked the 
camp of the invaders at night, set them to flight, and rescued his nephew. 

This is the first battle recorded in history. 

"When Abram was one hundred years old the Lord's promise was re- 
newed to him. His name was changed to Abraham, the name of his wife 
to Sarah ; and Isaac, through whom the promise of a great progeny was to 
be fulfilled, was born. 

"When Isaac was forty years old, Abraham sent his servant to Mesopo- 
tamia to obtain a wife for him. His second couMn, the granddaughter of 
his father's brother, was selected, and she consented to go back with the 
servant, and marry her kinsman. From this marriage two sons were bom, 
Esau and Jacob. By the right of birth Esau possessed certain advantages, 
which Jacob purchased of him by dressing him some food when returning 
faint and hungry from the chase, thereby supplanting him. He afterwards, 
by deceiving his father, who was nearly blind, obtained from him the 
parental blessing conferred only upon the first-born. This so enraged his 
brother, that Jacob sought safety in flight, and went to his mother's 
brother in Mesopotamia. 

There he was kindly received, and after a short time had elapsed he 
entered into the service of his uncle, and agreed to labor for him seven 
years for his youngest daughter. Having fulfilled his part of the contract, 
Laban, his uncle, gave him his eldest daughter. "W^lien Jacob discovered 
the deception his father-in-law had practiced upon him, he demanded 
Rachel. Laban, however, required him to serve another seven years, 



OF HISTORY. 21 

which he did. Alter the second marriage he continued still to live with 
Laban, and received as pay a share of his flocks. 

In securing this share, he was thought by his brothers-in-law to have 
practiced unfair means, hence they became hostile to him. 

His father-in-law also having become unfriendly, he fled, and returned 
to his native land with his family and his flocks. 

Laban pursued and overtook him, and though their meeting was far 
from being friendly, they entered into an agreement, and gave pledges 
that they would not annoy each other in future. Jacob then pursued 
his journey. As he approached his native country he sent presents to his 
brother Esau, who came out to meet him, and they became reconciled. 

Jacob journeyed on to Canaan, and sat down in the city Shalim. Soon 
after he removed to Hebron, the home of his childhood. 

He was rich in flocks and herds, and his neighbors respected and 
feared him. In accordance with the patriarchal mode of life, his twelve 
sons and one daughter remained with him, who, with their wives, children, 
and servants, made a large family or tribe. 

Note. — For a history of Abraham, see Genesis, from the eleventh to 
the twenty-seventh chapters. 

JOSEPH. 

Jacob treated the children of Rachel, his beloved wife with greater 
tenderness than he did those of Leah, his first wife, and Joseph was 
his favorite. The partiality shown to this son so enraged his brothers 
that they determined to get rid of him. They found an opportunity to 
carry out their design under the following circumstances. The older 
brothers having been absent with their flocks so long that their father 
became anxious about their safety, and sent Joseph to search for them. As 
they beheld him afar off" they plotted to murder him ; but, taking the 
advice of Reuben, they imprisoned him in a pit in the wilderness. Soon 
after his confinement a caravan of travelling merchants passed, and to 
these they sold Joseph into slavery, telling their father that he had been 
destroyed by wild beasts. 

The merchants carried him into Egypt, and disposed of him to Poti- 
phar, the commander of the king's guards. 

In Potiphar's house he rose to great eminence as a servant ; but falling 
into disgrace through a false accusation, he was thrown into prison. 
While in prison his conduct was so exemplary and submissive, that he 
gained the favor of the jailor, and was allowed the freedom of the prison. 

The king's baker and butler had also fallen into disgrace, and were in- 
carcerated in the same place. They both, on the same night, had remark- 



S4 GREAT EVENTS 

able dreams, which Joseph interpreted, predicting that one of them 
should be executed, and the other restored to favor. 

Some time after, Pharaoh himself had a dream, which troubled him very 
much. His chief butler, remembering the interpretation of his own 
dream by the Hebrew slave, his fellow-prisoner, named Joseph to the 
king, who sent for him without delay. Appearing before the great mon- 
arch, Joseph disclaimed all power in himself to explain the meaning of 
what had appeared to the mind of the king, but modestly and reverently 
said the Lord of his fathers would show the signification. 

The king having told his dreams, Joseph predicted seven years of great 
plenty, to be succeeded by seven years of dearth, and advised Pharaoh to 
build vast granaries and fill them, during the years of abundance. 

The advice was immediately acted upon, and Joseph was elevated to the 
rank of governor of all Egypt, and the erection of storehouses, and the 
filling of them with grain, was entrusted to him. 

The years of plenty came and passed away, and were succeeded by 
tedious years of sore famine. While the Egyptians had stores of food 
laid up by the providence and foresight of Joseph, the neighboring nations, 
having exhausted their stoclc of provisions, were obliged to go to Egypt to 
buy. The dearth oppressing the inhabitants of Canaan, Joseph's brothers 
came down to purchase also. While on a second visit to buy food they 
were made aware that their despised and hated brother, whom they had 
sold into slavery, was the governor of Egypt. 

Having made himself known to them, they were overwhelmed with sui- 
prise and fear ; but he most magnanimously pardoned and comforted 
them by saying, " Be not grieved or angry with yourselves that ye sold 
me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life." (Genesis 
xlv. 5> 7-) " God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the 
earth, and to save yourselves for a great deliverance." 

Joseph's father and all his family were at once brought into Egypt, and 
established with their flocks and herds on the eastern bank of the lower 
Nile, where Joseph nourished them, and where they prospered for many 
generations, until a new king arose, who knew not Joseph. 



OF HISTORY. 2jJ 



CHAPTER IV. 

EXODUS OF THE DESCENDANTS OF JACOB FROM EGYPT, AND 
THEIR SOCIAL LIFE AND HABITS. 

Prosperity and increase of the Israelites — The Egyptians fear the Hebrews — Oppression of 
Israelites — They set out from Egypt— Their jonmeyings in the wilderness of Arabia — 
Their final entry into the promised land — Stationary character of the Hebrews for a long 
period— Their ignorance of the arts — Their employments — Size of the farms they cnltivated 
— Seasons of the year— Trees and plants cultivated for frnit and food — ^Wealth — Sins — 
Literature and learning — Domestic animals — Change in dwellings — ^Effect of the introduc- 
tion of wealth and luxury — Book of Proverbs— Soothsaying— Advancement in literature — 
David and Solomon— Religions— Tendency to idoJ^try— Wealth and luxury after Solomon's 
reign— Feasts— Personal pride and display. 

THE EXODUS. 

The part of Egypt in which Joseph had settled his family was one of 
the most fertile parts of the Valley of the Nile. Skirted on the south by 
hills, it sloped off to the northwest towards the Mediterranean Sea, thus 
affording the most favorable exposure for the purpose of the pastoral life 
which the Israelites led. 

For more than a century they pursued their quiet employment, and 
were treated by the Egyptians with respect and consideration, in memory 
of Prince Joseph. 

The prosperity and increase of the Israelites, with their distinctness as 
a people, alarmed the Egyptian powers, who turned their attention to 
some means to cripple them and arrest their increase. 

Oppression was resorted to. Privileges were withheld, and severer 
tasks imposed, until one tremendous groan went up from the land of 
Goshen to the God of their fathers. In spite of all the oppression and in- 
justice practiced upon this people, they throve and increased in numbers. 

The Lord heard the cry of the outraged Hebrew slave, and permitted 
his enemies to afflict him, that he might find the country hateful, and feel 
that he was only a sojourner, who was to seek a promised land, the land 
promised to his father, Abraham, 

Their burdens became intolerable. Moses, their leader, applied to 
Pharaoh to allow them to depart from the country ; but the king refused, 
and God afflicted the Egyptians with dreadful plagues, until they prayed 
the Israelites to depart. 

They set out with all their effects, moving towards Arabia, and on 
reaching the shore of the Red Sea they became aware of the fact that 
Pharaoh, with his army, was pursuing. 

2 



24 GREAT EVENTS 

Hemmed in on either side by hills, the sea before them, and their 
enemies behind, they were overwhelmed with despair. But now the God 
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, their fathers, delivered them with a 
great deliverance, for, at His command, the sea opened and allowed them 
to pass over in safety. Pharaoh, pursuing, led his chariots and horseiuep 
into the bed of the sea, and the returning waters engulfed them. All were 
destroyed, not one escaped : a terrific exhibition of the wrath of the Al- 
mighty. 

The Israelites journeyed on towards Canaan, the land of promise, 
spending forty years in the deserts of Arabia, living in tents, subsisting on 
manna, which they found on the ground in the morning, ajid on the flesh 
of birds, which came to them every evening, making their whole journey 
a series of miracles and special providences. They finally reached the 
Jordan, which, like the Red Sea, opened for them, and allowed them to 
pass over dry-shod. 

The inhabitants of the land were driven out, and the weary wanderers, 
who had crossed and recrossed their path in the rocky wilds and desert 
sands of Arabia, sat down in the land of their fathers, and became dwell- 
ers in permanent habitations. 

SOCIAL LIFE AND HABITS OF THE HEBREWS. 

On account of the wonderful deliverance of this remarkable people, the 
special care which God took of them, and the fact that a Saviour was to 
be born among them, we are led to follow them into the promised land, 
and to inquire what were their modes of life, their habits of culture, and 
their advances in civilization. 

PROGRESS OF THE ISRAELITES AFTER REACHING THE LAND OF 
PROMISE. 

Between the time of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan and the birth 
of our Saviour a period of 1,451 years elapsed. It is not our object to fol- 
low out the history of this wonderful nation, yet it would seem necessary 
to state briefly their progress. 

For several centuries they remained much in the same state as Joshua, 
their great captain, left them ; contending with the surrounding tribes 
whenever their encroachments were disputed, at other times living friendly 
with them ; not only intermarrying, but allowing themselves to be seduced 
into idolatry ; for which sin the Lord permitted the neighboring nations, 
in more than one instance, to conquer them, to break up their govern- 
ment, and carry the principal inhabitants into bondage. In each case, 
however after long and weary years of captivity, their country was re- 



OF HISTORY. 



25 



stored to them, and the spoilers themselves were made instruments in the 
hands of God to reconstruct the nation. 

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION. 

During the forty years of wandering in the wilderness very little oppoi'- 
tunity was afforded for the exercise of the arts of life. It is difficult to 
conjecture the employment of that vast multitude during all those years. 

The consti^uction of the tabernacle and its furniture called into use the 
skill and workmanship of the best artisans ; but, aside from that, there was 
nothing to tax their talent. During the forty years they lost the arts they 
had learned in Egypt. 

For many years after they entered the Holy Land their mode of living 
was rude and simple, depending mainly upon the produce of their flocks 
and herds for sustenance. We have reason to infer that they also drew 
upon the same source for many articles of clothing. 

The forty years of pilgrimage in the wilderness swept into the grave 
nearly all the vast multitude that left Egypt with Moses. Those who en- 
tered the Holy Land had not witnessed the idolatry of Egypt. Moreover 
their very existence had depended upon the fall of the manna. Witness- 
ing this daily miracle, a spirit of dependence and submission must have 
engrafted itself upon this new generation. 

The dreary chastisement of the forty years, the plagues that once and 
again made such havoc, the sad fact that the bones of their fathers were 
left to whiten in the wilderness, must have produced a terrible impression. 
The people who came out from Egypt were haughty, unbelieving, and re- 
bellious. Their descendants, humbled by chastisement, made dependent 
by their helplessness, became gentle, submissive, and obedient. We must 
hence infer that they remained for many years simple in habits and de- 
votional in spirit. 

For three hundred and thirty-two years after the death of Joshua, the 
.successor of Moses, the Israelites were governed by judges. During this 
period the Jews were a nation of farmers, and each farmer was the pro- 
prietor of his own farm. The size of the farm allotted to each family may 
at first have averaged from twenty to fifty acres ; and as there were very 
few sei-vants or laborers, except such hewers of wood and drawers of water 
as the Gibeonites, each family had to cultivate its own estate. The houses 
were seldom built apart from each other, like the farm-houses of our own 
country — that would have been too insecure : they were placed together in 
villages, towns, and cities ; and when the place was very much exposed, 
and of great importance, it was surrounded by a wall. 

The lands were adapted chiefly for three kinds of produce — grain, fruit, 
and pasture. Wheat, millet, barley, and beans were the principal kinds 



26 GREAT EVENTS 

of grain ; flax and cotton were also cultivated, and small garden Iterbs, 
such as anise, cummin, mint, and rue. (Matt, xxiii. 23.) 

The orchards were exceedingly productive. The olive, fig, pomegran- 
ate, vine, almond, and apple were all common ; and a great part of the 
time of the Hebrews, in days of peace, must have been spent in cultivating 
these fruit-trees. 

As beasts of burden, they had the ox, the camel, and the ass ; while 
heep and goats constituted the staple of their flocks. 

Their gram harvest began about the beginning of our April, and lasted 
for about two months. Summer followed, in June and July, and was the 
season for gathering the garden fruits. The next two months were still 
warmer, so that the sheep-shearing would have to be overtaken before 
they set in. During all this time little or no rain falls in Palestine. The 
country becomes excessively parched, the brooks and springs dry up, and 
almost the only supply of water is from the pools and reservoirs that have 
been filled in winter. 

October and November are the seed time. " The former rain " falls 
now. It often falls with violence, fills the dry torrent-beds, and illustrates 
oui Saviour's figure of the rains descending, and the floods coming and 
beating upon the houses. (Matt. vii. 25, 27.) December and January are 
the winter months, when frost and snow are not uncommon ; February 
and March are also cold. " The latter rains '' fall at this season. About 
the end of it, " the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers 
appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the 
voice of the turtle is heard in the land ; the fig-tree putteth forth her green 
figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell." (Song of 
Sol. ii. 11-13.) 

Among the wild trees and vegetable products of the country were the 
cedar, stable and lofty, an emblem of usefulness and beauty (Ps. xcii. 12) ; 
the oak, both the smooth and the prickly sort, which grew in great luxu- 
riance in Bashan ; the terebinth, or turpentine-tree (translated oak in our 
Bibles), a large evergreen, with spreading branches, often growing singly, 
and so striking as to mark a district — like the terebinth of Shechem, of 
Mamre (or Hebron), and of Ophrah ; the fir, the cypress, the pine, the 
myrtle, and the mulberry. The oleander and the prickly pear flourished 
in most situations. The rose and the lily were the common flowers. 
Altogether, the number of vegetable products was large and varied ; and, 
in such a country, Solomon's memory and acquirements could not have 
been contemptible, when " he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in 
Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." 

The ordinary employments of the Hebrew farmer were thus ample and 
varied, but not very toilsome ; and often they were pleasantly interrupted. 



OF HISTORY. 



27 



Thrice a year the males went up to Shiloh, to the three great festivals — Pass- 
over, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Each seventh day was a holy Sabbath 
to the Lord, devoted to rest and worship. At each new moon there was 
also a holy-day. Each seventh year was a year of rest, at least from the 
ordinary occupations of the field and the garden : it was probably turned to 
account in repairing houses, clothes, and implements, and particularly in 
the religious instruction of the people. The education of the children was 
chiefly in the hands of their parents, assisted by the Levites, who were 
scattered over the country, and paid from the tithes of the whole produce. 
On the whole, the Hebrews, in times of peace, led, during this period, a 
quiet, unambitious, country life. 

Occasionally, as in the song of Deborah, we meet with proofs that 
music, and song, and literary culture were not neglected ; and the " divers 
colors of needlework on both sides," for which the mother of Sisera 
waited so anxiously at her window, showed that the Hebrew ladies had 
acquired no mean skill in the use of their needles. But, on the whole, 
neither learning, nor the mechanical arts, nor manufactures, nor commerce, 
nor the fine arts, were very vigorously cultivated, or made much progress 
during this period. Each man was content to sit under his vine and 
under his fig-tree ; and the children of a family were usually quite pleased 
to divide the possessions, and follow the occupations of their fathers. 

The government of the country was carried on chiefly by local officers. 
It is not easy to ascertain the precise number and nature of the depart- 
ments of the government, or of the officers by whom they were carried on. 
But each of the twelve tribes seems to have had a government of its own. 
Each city had its elders, and each tribe its rulers and princes. In ordi- 
. nary cases, justice seems to have been administered and local disputes 
settled by the tribal authorities. There seem also to have been certain 
central tribunals. In particular, there was " the whole congregation of 
Israel " — a sort of house of commons, or states-general, composed of dele- 
gates from the whole nation, by whom matters of vital importance to the 
whole country were considered. 

In ordinary times, the high priest seems to have exercised considerable 
political influence over the nation ; and in pressing dangers, the judges 
were invested with extraordinar}- powers. The whole of the twelve tribes 
were welded together, and had great unity of feeling and action imparted 
to them, through the yearly gatherings at the great religious festivals. 
When idolatry prevailed in any district of the country, these gatherings 
would be neglected, and the unity of the nation consequently impaired. 

No important addition was made during this period to the religious 
knowledge of the people. There was no new revelation of the Messiah, 
except in so far as the several deliverers who were raised up foreshadowed 



28 GREAT EVENTS 

the Great Deliverer. The ceremonial law of Moses was probably in full 
operation during the periods of religious faithfulness. The great lesson 
regarding sin — its hatefulness in God's eyes, and the certainty of its pun- 
ishment — was continually renewed by the events of providence. 

Those who really felt the evil of sin would see in the sacrifices that 
were constantly offered up a proof that God cannot accept the sinner un- 
less his sin be atoned for through the shedding of blood. But even pious 
men had not very clear ideas of the way of acceptance with God. A 
humble sense of their own unworthiness, the spirit of trust in God's un- 
deserved mercy for pardon, and a steady, prayerful endeavor to do all that 
was right in God's sight, were the great elements of true piety in tho?e 
days. There was great occasion for the exercise of high trust in God, both 
in believing that prosperity would always follow the doing of His will, and 
in daring great achievements, like those of Barak and Gideon, under the 
firm conviction that He would crown them with success. 

But in a religious point of view this period was a very checkered one ; 
sometimes one state of things prevailed, sometimes another. The people 
showed a constant inclination to forsake the pure worship of the true God, 
and fall into the idolatry of their neighbors. The oppressions which those 
veiy neighbors inflicted on them, and the wars which ensued, generally 
produced an antipathy to their religious and other customs, which lasted 
for some years ; but the old fondness for idolatry retiirned again and 
again. 

It clearly appears that a pure, spiritual worship is distasteful to the 
natural heart. Men unconverted do not relish coming into heart-to-heart 
contact with the unseen God ; they are much more partial to a worship 
conducted through images and symbols : for this reason the Israelites were 
always falling into idolatry ; idolatry led to immorality ; and both drew 
down on them the judgments of their offended God. 

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE KINGDOM 
DURING THE REIGNS OF SAUL, DAVID, AND SOLOMON. 

During this period the state of social life among the Jewish people 
■ mderwent a very great change. An immense flow of wealth into the 
t;ountry took place. Through intercourse with other countries, many new 
tiabits and fashions were introduced. The people lost not a little of their 
tiarly simplicity of character and life. A splendid court had been set iip, 
•tnd a splendid capital built. Commercial relations had been established 
vith remote parts of the world. A great stride had been taken in the 
iirection of luxury and refinement. 
There was now a standing army, a large staff of civil officers, and a va.st 



OF HISTORY. 



29 



number of menial servants in the country. Besides the ass, the horse an.l 
the mule were now introduced as beasts of buiden ; chariots and splendid 
equipages were set up ; and many persons assumed the style and bearing 
of princes. Private dwellings underwent a corresponding change, and all 
the luxuries of Egypt and Nineveh became familiar to the Hebrews. 

But was all this for good? It appears as if the nation, or its leaders, 
now struck out a new path for themselves, in which God ratlier followed 
than preceded them, giving them, indeed, at first, a large measure of pros- 
perity, but leaving them more to their own ways and to the fruits of these 
ways than before. This, at least, was plainly the case under Solomon. 
The vast wealth ciixulated in his time over the country did not bring any 
proportional addition, either to the material comfort, or to the moral 
beauty, or to the spiritual riches of the nation. There can be no doubt 
that " haste to be rich " brought all the evils and sins which always flow 
from it in an age of progress towards worldly show and magnificence. 

It appears from the Proverbs that many new vices were introduced. 
Many of the counsels of that book would have been quite inapplicable to a 
simple, patriarchal, agricultural people ; but they were eminently adapted 
to a people surrounded by the snares of wealth and the temptations of 
commerce, and very liable to forget or despise the good old ways and 
counsels of their fathers. The Proverbs will be read with far greater in- 
terest, if it be borne in mind that this change had just taken place among 
the Hebrews, and that, as Solomon had been instrumental in giving the 
nation its wealth, so, perhaps, he was led by the Spirit to write this book, 
and that of Ecclesiastes, to guard against the fatal abuse of his own gift. 

The practice of soothsaying, or fortune-telling, was common among the 
Jews at the beginning of this period. The prevalence of such a practice 
indicates a low standard of intellectual attainment. It seems to have had 
its head-quarters among the Philistines (Isa. ii. 6) ; and very probably, 
when Saul drove all who practised it from the land, he did so more from 
enmity to the Philistines than from dislike to the practice itself. It con- 
tinued, as Saul himself knew, to lurk in the country, even after all the royal 
efforts to exterminate it. (i Sam. xxviii. 7.) Probably it never altogether 
died out. In New Testament times it was evidently a flourishing trade. 
(Acts viii. 9 ; xiii. 6.) All over the East it was practised to a large extent, 
and the Jewish sorcerers had the reputation of being the most skillful of 
any. It was the counterfeit of that wonderful privilege of knowing God's 
mind and will, which the Jew enjoyed through the Urim and Thummira 
of the high-priest. Those who would not seek, or could not obtain, the 
genuine coin, resorted to the counterfeit. 

In literary and scientific culture the nation made a great advance during 
this period. In a merely literary point of view, the Psalms of David and 



30 



GREAT EVENTS 



the writings of Solomon possess extraordinary merits ; and we cannot 
doubt that two literary kings, whose reigns embraced eighty years, or 
nearly three generations, would exercise a very great influence, and have 
their example veiy largely followed among their people. David's talents 
as a musician, and the extraordinary pains he took to improve the musical 
services of the sanctuary, must have greatly stimulated the cultivation of 
that delightful art. 

What David did for music, Solomon did for natural history. It need 
not surprise us that all the uninspired literary compositions of that period 
have perished. If Homer flourished (according to the account of Herodo- 
tus) 884 years before Christ, Solomon must have been a century in his 
tomb before the " Iliad " was written. And if it be considered what diffi- 
culty there was in preserving the " Iliad," and how uncertain it is whether 
we have it as Homer wrote it, it cannot be surprising that all the Hebrew 
poems and writings of this period have been lost, except such as were con- 
tained in the inspired canon of Scripture. 

There were, also, great religious changes during this period of the his- 
tory. Evidently, under Samuel, a great revival of true religion took 
place ; and the schools of the prophets which he established seem to have 
been attended with a marked blessing from Heaven. Under David the 
change was confirmed. In the first place, the coming Messiah was more 
clearly revealed. It was expressly announced to David, as has been 
already remarked, that the great Deliverer was to be a member of his 
race. David, too, as a type of Christ, conveyed a more full and clear idea 
of the person and character of Christ than any typical person that had 
gone before him. 

It is interesting to inquire how far a religious spirit pervaded the people 
at large. The question cannot receive a very satisfactory answer. It is 
plain that even in David's time the mass of the people were not truly 
godly. The success of Absalom's movement is a proof of this. Had 
there been a large number of really godly persons in the tribe of Judah, 
they would not only not have joined the insurrection, but their influence 
would have had a great effect in hindering its success. The real state of 
matters seems to have been, that both in good times and in bad there were 
some persons, more or less numerous, of earnest piety and spiritual feel- 
ing, who worshipped God in spirit, not only because it was their duty, but 
also because it was their delight ; while the mass of the people either wor- 
shipped idols, or worshipped God according to the will, example, or com- 
mand of their rulers. 

But the constant tendency was to idolatry ; and the intercourse with 
foreign nations which Solomon maintained, as well as his own example, 
greatly increased the '■endency. Under Solomon, indeed, idolatry struck 



OF HISTORY. 31 

its roots so deep, that all the zeal of the reforming kings that followed him 
failed to eradicate them. It was not till the seventy years' captivity of 
Babylon that the soil of Palestine was thoroughly purged of the roots of 
that noxious weed. 



SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MANNERS DURING THE PERIOD WHICH ELAPSED 
BETWEEN THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF SOLOMON AND THE CAP- 
TIVITY, INCLUDING A PERIOD OF ABOUT SIX HUNDRED YEARS. 

During six hundred years that constituted the kingdom of Israel from 
the close of Solomon's reign to the total captivity, the same spirit of luxuiy 
and taste for display prevailed. 

In regard to wealth and property, the moderation and equality of earlier 
days were now widely departed from. Isaiah denounces those who " join 
house to house, and lay field to field, that they may be placed alone in the 
midst of the earth." Notwithstanding, some men, like Naboth, stood up 
bravely for their paternal rights ; and even in Jeremiah's time, the old prac- 
tice of redeeming possessions survived, (xxxii. 7.) Many of the people lived 
in elegant houses " of hewn stone" (Amos v. 11), which they adorned with 
the greatest care. There were winter-houses, summer-houses, and houses 
of ivory, (iii. 15.) Jeremiah describes the houses as " ceiled with cedar and 
painted with veraiilion " (xxii. 14) ; and Amos speaks of the " beds of 
ivory" and luxurious " couches" on which the inmates " stretched them- 
selves." (vi. 4.) 

Sumptuous and protracted feasts were given in these houses. Lambs 
out of the flock and calves from the stall had now become ordinary fare. 
(vi. 4.) At feasts, the person was anointed with " chief ointments ;" wine 
was drunk from bowls ; sometimes the drinking was continued from early 
morning, to the sound of the harp, the viol, the tabret, and the pipe. (Isa. 
V. II, 12.) The dress, especially of the ladies, was often most luxui'ious 
and highly ornamented. Isaiah has given us an elaborate picture of the 
ornaments of the fine ladies of Jerusalem. He foretells a day when " the 
Lord would take away the bravery of the ankle-bands, and the caps of net- 
work, and the crescents ; the pendants, and the bracelets, and the veils ; 
the turbans, and the ankle-chains, and the girdles, and the smellirtg- 
bottles, and the amulets ; the signet-rings, and the nose-jewels ; the holi- 
day dresses and the mantles, and the robes, and the purses ; the mirrors, 
and the tunics, and the head-dresses, and the large veils." (Isa. iii. 18-23. 
— Alexander's Tratislation.) 

A plain, unaffected gait would have been far too simple for ladies carry- 
ing such a load of artificial ornament : the neck sti-etched out, the eyes 
rolling wantonly, and a mincing or tripping step completed the picture, 

3* 



32 GREAT EVENTS 

and showed to 'what a depth of folly woman may sink through love of 
finery. Splendid equipages were also an object of ambition. Chariots 
were to be seen drawn by horses, camels, or asses, with elegant caparisons 
(Isa. xxi. 7) ; the patriarchal mode of riding on an ass being now confined 
to the poor. 

There are some traces, but not many, of high intellectual culture. Isaiah 
speaks of " the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent 
orator," as if these were representatives of classes. We have seen that one 
of the kings of Judah (Uzziah) was remarkable for mechanical and engi- 
neering skill. Amos refers to " the seven stars and Orion," as if the ele- 
ments of astronomy had been generally familiar to the people. On the 
other hand, there are pretty frequent references to soothsayers and sorcer- 
ers, indicating a low intellectual condition. The prevalence of idolatry 
could not fail to debase the intellect as well as corrupt the morals and dis- 
order society. 

Very deplorable, for the most part, are the allusions of the prophets to 
the abounding immorality. There is scarcely a vice that is not repeatedly 
denounced and wept over. The oppression of the poor was one of the 
most flagrant. Amos declares that the righteous were sold for silver, and 
the poor for a pair of shoes. From Ilosea it appears that wives were 
bought and sold. The princes and rulers were specially blamed for their 
covetousness, their venality, their oppressions, their murders. (Isa. i. 23 , 
X. I. Hosea ix. 15.) Impurity and sensuality flourished under the shade 
of idolatry. In large towns there was a class that pandered to the vices 
of the licentious. (Amos vii. 17.) Robbery, lies, deceitful balances, were 
found everywhere. Even genuine grief, under affliction and bereavement, 
had become rare and difficult ; and persons " skillful of lamentation " had 
to be hired to weep for the dead ! 

The revivals under the pious kings of Judah, as far as the masses were 
concerned, were rather galvanic impulses than kindlings of spiritual life. 
Yet it cannot be doubted that during these movements many hearts were 
truly turned to God. The new proofs that were daily occurring of God's 
dreadful abhorrence of sin, would lead many to cry more earnestly for de- 
liverance from its punishment and its power. 

In the disorganized and divided state into which the kingdom fell, ren- 
dering it difficult and even impossible for the annual festivals to be ob- 
served, the writings of the prophets, as well as the earlier portions of the 
written word, would contribute greatly to the nourishment of true piety. 
The 119th Psalm, with all its praises of the word and statutes of the Lord, 
is a memorable proof of the ardor with which the godly were now drink- 
ing from these wells of salvation. Increased study of the word would 
lead to enlarged knowledge of the Messiah, though even the prophets 



OF HISTORY. 



33 



themselves had to " search what, or what manner of time the Spirit of 
Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the suf- 
ferings of Clirist and the glory that should follow." One great result of 
the training of this period was, to carry forward the "minds of the faithful 
beyond the present to the future. In the immediate foreground of 
prophecy all was dark and gloomy, and hope could find no rest but in the 
distant future. The shades of a dark night were gathei-ing ; its long 
weary hours had to pass before the day should break and the shadows flee 
away. 

Note. — For a full account of the exodus, see the Book of Exodus. 



CHAPTER V. 

CONTEMPORARY NATIONS. 

The most important nations that flourished during the interval which 
elapsed between the time of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and 
the birth of our Saviour, a period of 145 1 years, were Egypt, Assyria, 
Babylon, Media, Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, Rome. Of these we can 
say little more than to briefly mention them. 



Egypt seems to have recovei^ed ere long, from the terrible catastrophe 
of the Red Sea. For several centuries after the exodus, that kingdom 
enjoyed an extraordinary measure of prosperity. " Egj-pt rose up like a 
flood, and his waters were moved like the rivers ; he said, I will go up, T 
will cover the earth, I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof." 

The eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, which the ancient Egyptians 
considered the most glorious of any, were on the throne during part of this 
period. They extended the conquests of the Egyptians far into Asia and 
Africa. Rameses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, commonly called Rameses 
the Great, was an illustrious conqueror. The Greeks called him Sesostris ; 
but, according to Wilkinson, they confounded Rameses with Osirtasen, 
also a great conqueror, who ruled Egypt about 2000 years before Christ. 

The Egyptian arms had now penetrated as far as Assyria, and the 
strong fortress of Carchemish, on the Euphrates, remained for centuries in. 
their hands. The priests continued, for the most part, to enjoy their 
former influence. Everywhere the most magnificent temples, tombs, 
palaces, obelisks, statues, sphinxes, and other works of art, were executed 
during this period. The plain of Thebes was adorned with some of -its 



34 GREAT EVENTS 

most wonderful buildings. In point of material glory, Egypt sat as d 
queen, with no one as yet to dispute her wonderful pi-e-eminence. 

Rather more than 700 years B.C., towards the end of the kingdom of the 
ten tribes, Sabaco, a- conqueror from Ethiopia, subdued the country and 
usurped the throne. He is called So in Scripture, and was the king on 
whom Hosca vainly relied for aid against the Assyrians. Tirhakah, 
another king of the Ethiopian dynasty, was the prince whose rumored 
advance against Sennacherib led that king to urge the submission of 
Hezekiah. (Isa. xxxvii. g.) 

A period of disorder occurs about this era in Egyptian history ; by-and- 
by the throne is filled by Psammiticus. The usual residence of the royal 
family of Egypt was now at Sais, near the mouth of the Nile. Psam- 
miticus was followed by Necho, in battle with whom king Josiah was 
killed. He attempted the union of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean 
by a canal, an undertaking that cost the lives of 120,000 men. A naval 
squadron sent out by him is said to have circumnavigated Africa^ and re- 
turned to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules, now the Straits of Gibraltar. 
His successor was Apries, the Pharaoh-hophra of the Bible, who was 
killed in trying to quell the rebellion of the usurper Amasis. During this 
period Egypt was coming into closer connection with Greece ; her national 
peculiarities were declining, and the influence of the priesthood was de- 
cidedly on the wane. Great efforts were made by her to conquer Asia, 
but the military genius of Nebuchadnezzar repelled the invaders, and at 
last Egypt had to pay homage to Babylon. 

2. ASSYRIA. 

Much of the early history of Assyria is shrouded in obscurity. From 
the time, in very remote antiquity, when it absorbed Babylon, and became 
the ruling power in that part of the world, till it was itself destroyed and 
absorbed by Babylon, several revolutions occurred, and several dynasties 
of kings occupied the throne. Nineveh was not at all times the capital, 
or at least the seat of monarchy, but it seems to have been always the 
largest and noblest city of the empire ; at least, in its palmy days, no other 
could be compared to it either in size or magnificence. 

It was the practice of the kings of Assyria to record the chief events of 
their reigns on tablets or monuments, many of which have been preserved, 
and which Oriental scholars are now laboring to decipher. We may state 
briefly what the monuments are believed to record regarding some of the 
kings, and what we learn to have been the state of the empire in their 
time. Asshur-dani-pal (or Sardanapalus, of which name there were more 
kings than one), about the year B.C. 930 (or the time of Asa), was a great 
conqueror. He calls himself " the conqueror from the upper passage of 



OF HISTORY^ 35 

the Tigris to Lebanon and the Great Sea, who has reduced under his 
tiuthorities all countries from the rising of the sun to the going down 
thereof." He built the northwest palace at Nimrud, which, next to 
that of Sennacherib at Koyunjik, is the largest and most magnificent 
of all the Assyrian edifices. A close analogy (says Rev. G. Rawlinson) 
has been pointed out between this style of building and the great edi- 
fices of the Jews, as described in Scripture and by Josephus, though 
the dimensions of the palace of Solomon fell far short of those of the 
Assyrian monarchs.* Another king, called on the monuments Shal- 
manu-bar (B.C. gio-86o), frequently attacked Syria and the confines of 
Palestine. He fought with Benhadad, and afterwards with Hazael, whom 
he defeated, killing, according to his own account, 16,000 of his fighting 
men, and capturing 1,100 of his chariots. An inscription records the 
tribute which " Yahua, the son of Khumri " — supposed to mean " Jehu, 
the son (or successor) of Omri " — paid this king. Iva-lush (b.c. 800-747), 
thought to be Pul, records on his monuments tribute received from the 
country of Khumri (Omri — Samaria) ; corresponding to Menahem's pay- 
ment of 1,000 talents. Of Tiglath-pileser the monuments are very imper- 
fect. The name of Shalmaneser, the captor of Samaria, has not yet been 
found. Sargon (b.c. 721-702) captured Ashdod and other cities of the 
Philistines, and made war successfully with Egypt. He was followed by 
Sennacherib, who at vast cost repaired and beautified Nineveh, erecting 
the great Koyunjik palace, with its magnificent halls and galleries. His 
war-like achievements were such as enable us to understand his boastful lan- 
guage to King Hezekiah. In Chaldea, he destroyed seventy-nine cities and 
eight hundred and twenty villages. From the Nabatseans and Hagarenes 
he carried off more than two hundred thousarid prisoners. Viewed in the 
light of his vast military prestige and resources, the resistance of Hezekiah 
to Sennacherib becomes sublime. 

Esarhaddon, who carried Manasseh captive to Babylon, was a great 
improver of the empire. Thirty temples, " shining with silver and gold, 
as splendid as the sun," were built by him, and at least three new palaces. 
After him the Assyrian empire began rapidly to decline in war like power, 
though the fine arts were still carefully cultivated. The names of at least 
two other kings are found on the monuments. At length the Baby- 
lonians and the Medes, who had asserted their independ- 
ence, succeeded in utterly destroying it, its king, Saracus, or B.C. 
Sardanapalus, perishing in the flames of his palace. f 625. 

* The palace of Solomon was 150 feet long and 75 broad— a space only 1-lOth that 
of the palace of Sardanapalus, and not l-30th that of Sennacherib. 

t See that most elaborate and careful work— to which we have so often been in. 
debted— the History of Herodotus, translated and edited, with copious notes, b^ 



36 GREAT EVENTS 



3. BABYLON AND MEDIA. 

The early history of Babylon, like that of Assyria, is very obscure. It 
seems for a long time to have been a dependent kingdom under Assyria. 
Occasionally its kings asserted independence. In the time of Hezekiah, 
Merodach-baladan was an independent king ; but the kingdom was soon 
after conquered by the Assyrians. The last Assyrian 'king appointed 
Nabopolassar governor of Babylon. Nabopolassar proved treacherous, 
and became the founder of the new Babylonian empire. In union with 
Cyaxares, the Median monarch, he attacked Nineveh, and destroyed it. 
Nabopolassar was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror 
of Jerusalem. 

The Medes are thought to have been a people of Eastern origin, who 
emigrated from near the Indus to the country to which they gave their 
name. For a long time their kingdom seems to have borne some sort of 
dependent relation to the great dominating power of Assyria. At length, 
under their king Cyaxares, having achieved their independence, they 
joined with the Babylonians in destroying Nineveh. Under Cyrus, the 
Medes and Persians united, and founded the great empire that succeeded 
the Babylonian. 

4. PHCENICIA. 

Phoenicia, though not altogether a stranger to arms and war, continued 
for the most part to prosecute her maritime and commercial pursuits. It 
was during this period that Tyre reached its zenith. As the prophet 
Elijah passed through it on his way to Zarephath, he could not have been 
less astonished at what he beheld than Jonah in Nineveh. Never had he 
seen such markets, such warehouses, such ships. If his visit was paid 
during one of the great fairs, the contrast with the quiet cities of Israel 
must have been overwhelming. Proud is the flag of embroidered Egyptian 
linen, known in every seaport of the world, that floats over the vessels, 
with the blue and purple awnings, in yonder harbor. The market-place 
of the town would only have had to be covered with a roof of Phoenician 
glass to become " a crystal palace " — an exposition of the industry of all 
nations. (Ezek. xxvii.) 

Every country that possesses a valuable commodity of any sort is repre- 
sented there. From the distant west, Tarshish sends silver, iron, tin, and 
lead. Armenia sends horses, probably of the famous Nisssean breed. 
Arabia sends horns and ivory, cassia and calamus, lambs and goats. 

Geoi'ge Rawlinson, M.A., assisted by (his brother) Co) Sir Hem-y RawliDEon, and 
Sir J. G. Wilkinson. Vols. 1. ii. iii. Lor /Ion, 1858. 



OF HISTORY. 



n 



Syria exhibits precious stones, fine linen, and broidered work. From the 
land of Israel have come wheat and honey, oil and the balm of Gilead. 
Damascus sends wine, the famous chalybon of the Greeks, and unwrought 
wool. From the ancient dominions of the Queen of Sheba have come 
spices, precious stones, and gold. 

From Assyria have been forwarded cedar boxes, bound with cords, con- 
taining rich apparel, the blue cloth of the Assyrian uniforms, and broidered 
work. True to the idea of an Eastern market, a space is allocated for the 
exposure of slaves, and Javan, Tubal, and Meshech send up the miserable 
creatures whose descendants, from Georgia and Circassia, in the same 
locality, are still bought and sold in the markets of the East. 

What would the " merchant-princes " of Tyre have thought, in the midst 
of all this greatness, had some one read to them a verse which a Hebrew 
prophet, on the distant banks of the Chebar, was inditing at the very 
time when their pride had received a new accession by the fall of Jerusa- 
lem? — " Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy 
pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men 
of war, that are in thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of 
thy ruin ! " 

5. CARTHAGE. 

The great empire of Carthage, which was long the dominating power in 
northwestern Africa and western Europe, sprung from a colony of Tyre. 
It wa? founded about 880 years B.C. — about the time when Jezebel, a 
native of the same district, was forcing on the Israelites the worship of 
Baal. The territories of Carthage were gradually extended, and through 
her vigorous system of colonization, most of the islands and sea-coasts in 
the west of Europe fell into her hands. It is probable that the rapid ex- 
tension of the Carthaginians tended to spread the impure, idolatrous wor- 
ship which they had brought from Tyre. Whatever commercial advan- 
tages they may have contributed to circulate among the barbarous nations 
with whom they came into contact, that of religious light was certainly 
none of their gifts. 

The religious darkness of western Europe must now have been fear 
fully deep. 

6. GREECE. 

Of all the countries that begin during this period to loom in the horizon 
of history, the most interesting by far is Greece. The situation of Greece, 
and its physical features, marked it out from the beginning as a remarkable 
land. It juts out into the sea, so as to command easy access to the three 
great continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is remarkable for the extra- 
ordinary extent of its seaboard, being penetrated in every direction by gulfs 



^S GREAT EVENTS 

bays, and creeks, which invited the settlement of adventurous partits, and 
encouraged those enterprises of which its early history was full. Nothing 
is known with certainty of its earliest inhabitants. The Titans may haxe 
been a gigantic race, allied perhaps to the Emim, Horim, and Anakim, 
races of early Palestine ; but their history is wrapped in fable. It is com- 
mon to trace the more civilized inhabitants of Greece to foreign colonies, 
of which the chief were those of Cecrops and Danaus from Egypt, already 
mentioned ; that of Cadmus from Phoenicia ; and that of Pelops from Asia 
Minor. Yet here also doubt and uncertainty prevail. 

But there is no doubt that about 1400 B.C., while the judges were ruling 
Israel, there appeared in Greece a very remarkable people — the Hellenes, 
from whom the country was called Hellas. They were a people of extra- 
ordinary energy and spirit, devoted to war and conquest, adventure and 
discovery, yet with a wonderful capacity of education ; fond, too, of the 
arts and pleasures of peace, and ready to bear the restraints of religion 
and social order. It was not long ere their stirring spirit spread itself 
through the other races of the country. For about two hundred years 
Greece was filled with their exploits and adventures. They furnished the 
great mine from which the Greek poets drew their materials. 

It is in the period which we have now been surveying that we are to 
place the dawn of Grecian literature. If, according to Herodotus, Homer 
lived about 900 years B.C., he must have been composing the " Iliad " 
when Elijah and Elisha were maintaining God's cause in Israel, and 
Jehoshaphat in Judah. Hesiod, Tyrtasus, Alcseus, and Sappho sung their 
verses in the seventh century before Christ ; and ^sop may have pub- 
lished his fables at Athens while Jeremiah was announcing his prophecies 
at Jerusalem. 

The Grecian or Macedonian Empire dates from 360 B. c. The mon- 
arch of the small kingdom of Macedon, in the north of Greece, observing 
the demoralized condition of the States, resolved to unite them under 
one government. 

Philip of Macedon, in order to accomplish this ambitious design, set 
to work to weaken them still more, by sowing dissensions among them. 
The Phocians, a neighboring people, claimed the use of a tract of land 
which the Greeks had consecrated to Apollo. War followed and con- 
tinued for ten years. Philip thinking the combatants had weakened 
tlicmselves sufficiently for his purpose, interfered and concluded the con- 
test. Soon the sacred territory was again desecrated, and war was re- 
newed. Philip was invited to take part. This was what the cunning 
statesman desired, and he at once entered Phocis with his army. De- 
mosthenes, the great orator of the Greeks, penetrated the designs of 
Philip, and in his stirring speeches warned his countrymen of their dan- 



OF HISTORY. 39 

ger. Philip's army, successful in every battle, soon made him ruler of all 
the States of Greece. Having conciliated the Greeks, by allowing them 
to retain their government, he turned his attention to the subjugation of 
Persia. 

While making preparations for this undertaking, having been appointed 
by a council of the Grecian States Commander-in-chief of all their armies, 
he was assassinated by a young Macedoaian, who was employed by the 
Persians to commit the act. , 

Alexander, the son of Philip, succeeded his father, at the age of 
twenty years. Alexander, surnamed Alexander the Great, was educated 
by Aristotle.* Fired with an ambition to carry out the designs of his 
father, he began to make preparations for invading Persia. 

In the meantime an insurrection occurred among the Greeks, who had 
been fii-ed by the patriotic eloquence of Demosthenes. 

This he quelled, and called a Council of States, at which council he was 
appointed, in place of his father, Commander-in-chief of the armies. He 
crossed the Hellespont with an army of 30,000 foot and 5000 horse. 

Darius Codomanus, who was then the king of Persia, met him on the 
banks of the river Granicus with an army 120,000 strong, and joined 
battle. The Persians were defeated with great slaughter. 

In the following spring Alexander engaged the Persians at Issus and 
defeated them, the Persians suffering great loss. He then besieged the 
wealthy city of Tyre, and after seven months reduced it. 

Proceeding thence to the city of Gaza he conquered it ; he then subdued 
Egypt, and founded the city of Alexandria, Returning to Persia, A'.exan 
der met Darius at Arbela. The Grecian army numbered about 50,000, 
and the Persians mustered 700,000. Alexander was again successful, 
destroying about half of the Persian army. 

This battle decided the question of supremacy, and Persia submitted to 
the conquerer. Alexander, having conquered the neighboring nations of 
Western Asia and South-eastern Europe, invaded India and marched 
his army to the banks of the Ganges. His soldiers refused to go further, 
and he set out to return ; reaching Babylon, he died of a fever said to 
have been brought on by intemperance in eating and drinking. 

Alexander died at the age of thirty-three, having reigned thirteen years. 
He was a statesman of great abilities, and one of the most skillful and 
successful military leaders of the world. 

He was remarkable for the rapidity of his movements, and especially 
for his great success in handling small bodies of troops when contending 

* It is said that Philip wrote to Aristotle, on the birth of Alexander, saying that he 
rejoiced in the birth of a son ; but that his gratitude was greater for having a son bom in 
the lifetime of Aristotle. 



40 



GREAT EVENTS 



with large numbers. Some of the armies which he put to rout quad- 
rupled his own numbers, and at Arbela it is said that the army of 
Darius was more than ten times as large as Alexander's. 

After Alexander's death the Macedonian empire was divided into four 
kingdoms, Macedonia, including Greece, making one. Soon after this 
division, Macedon was conquered by the Romans, and the remaining 
(ireek States attempted to recover their independence. Rome, which by 
this time had become the most powerful empire in the world, soon sub- 
dued them, and the whole became a Roman province. 

7. ROME. 

In the south of Europe a new nation now begins to raise its head. The 
Romans were in many points quite a contrast to the Greeks. Instead of 
the endless diversity of manners, society, arts, and government of the 
latter, the Romans presented a rigid unity ; and the lively, elastic, chival- 
rous spirit of the one was succeeded by the sombre, prosaic uniformity of 
the other. 

The Romans were remarkable for their sturdy, plodding, indomitable 
purpose ; they were painstaking and sagacious ; constantly on the alert to 
discover anything in their own favor ; successful and victorious to a de- 
gree that almost provokes one. In the more advanced periods of their 
history, conquest was the avowed object of their existence — they lived for 
it alone. Their rod was a rod of iron, and the world was made to feel its 
severity. 

Rome is said to have been founded B.C. 752— about the time when the 
king of Assyria was beginning to invade the kingdom of Israel. The his- 
tory of the Romans under their kings is admitted to bo full of legend and 
fable ; and till a later period we have scarcely an authentic fact regarding 
the people that were destined, in the wonderful purpose of God, to be the 
connecting link between the great continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa, 
and thus, all unconsciously to themselves, prepare the way for the univer- 
sal em Dire of Messiah. 

History relates that Romulus laid the foundation of Rome about 752 
before the birth of Christ, by erecting a castle on the summit of the Palatine 
hill, which he made an asylum for debtors, criminals, and outlaws from 
the surrounding nations. In this way, he soon gathered ai'ound him a 
large assemblage of reckless adventurers, ready for any predatory enter- 
prise. 

From the subjugation of the feeble tribes in their immediate vicinity, 
they proceeded to the conquering of nations more remote, until the gov- 
ernments of Europe, Asia, and Africa paid tribute to the Eternal City. 



OF HISTORY. 41 

In the days of Julius Csesar the empire was bounded by the Danube on 
the north, by the Euphrates and Armenia on the east, Ethiopia on the 
south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. 

No other nation has at any one time held such entire sway over such 
vast territories, peopled by such widely differing nationalities, as Rome 
did in the day of her power. 

Note. — ^As a pretty full account of the Roman empire will be found in another part of 
the book, just enough is said of it here to show that it was contemporary with the Jewish, 
nation. 



SECOND PERIOD. 

JB0J3 THE OPENING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE TlH OF 
THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 



The great central event in all history is the death of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. The centuries circle round the cross. Hundreds 
of stately figures — some in dazzling lustre, some in deepest gloom — crowd 
upon our gaze, as the story of the world unrolls before us ; but infinitely 
nobler than the grandest of these is the pale forai of Jesus, hanging on 
the rough and reddened wood at Calvary — dead, but victorious even in 
dying — stronger in that marble sleep than the mightiest of the world's liv- 
ing actors, or than all the marshalled hosts of sin and death. -Not the 
greatest sight only, but the strangest ever seen ; for there, at the foot of 
the cross, lie Death slain with his own dart, and Hell vanquished at his 
very gate. 

All that have ever lived — all living now — all who shall come after us, 
till time shall be no more, must feel the power of the cross. To those who 
look upon their dying Lord with loving trust, it brings life and joy, but 
death and woe to all who proudly reject that great salvation, or pass it un- 
heeding by. 

The details of that stupendous history — His lowly, yet royal birth — His 
pure, stainless life — His path of mystery and miracle — His wondrous 
works, and still more wondrous words — His agony — His cross — His glori- 
ous resurrection and ascension — all form a theme too sacred to be placed 
here with a record of mere common time, or blended with the dark, sad 
tale of human follies and crimes. Rather let us read it as they tell it who 
were themselves "eye-witnesses of His majesty" — who traced the very 
footsteps, and heard the veiy voice, and beheld the very living face of in- 
carnate love. And remember, as you read, that history is false to her 
noblest trust if she fails to teach that it is the power of the cross of Christ 
which alone preserves the world from hopeless corruption, and redeems 



GREA T E VENTS OF HIS TOR ?. 



43 



from utter vanity the whole life of mati on earth. Wildly, and blindly, 
and veiy far, have the nations often drifted from the right course — there 
seemed to be no star in heaven, and no lamp on earth ; but through every 
change an unseen omnipotent hand was guiding all things for the best : 
soul after soul was drawn by love's mighty attraction to the cross ; light 
arose out of darkness ; a new life breathed over the world ; and the wil- 
derness, where Satan seemed alone to dwell, blossomed anew into the 
garden of God. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM. 

Central Point: THE BUBNINa OF THE TEMPLE. 

View of the city — Vespasian — March of Titns — Factions within the walls— Openirg jf the 
siege— First wall taken— Second wall taken— Panse of five days— The famine — Acman 
banks burned — Capture of the Tower of Antonia — Strange omens — Horrors of the siege — 
Burning of the temple — Upper city taken — The triumph at Rome. 

" The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a 
trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every 
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within 
thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another." (Luke 
xix. 43, 44.) So said Jesus, as, riding on a colt down the leafy sk)pe of 
Olivet, he looked through His dropping tears upon Jerusalem. 

His gaze could trace every turret and winding of the three walls with 
which the city was enclosed. Below, in the deep valley, ran the silver 
thread of Cedron. Right in front, cutting the western sky, and crown- 
ing the steep crest of Moriah with white and gold, the countless spikes 
which studded its burnished roof flashing in the sunlight, rose the mag- 
nificent temple, enlarged and completed by Herod the Great. 

To the southwest — highest of the four hills on which the city lay — 
towered the rocky Zion, bearing on its rugged shoulders the citadel, the 
royal palace, and the houses of the upper city. Behind the temple, and 
north of Zion, was the hill Acra, shaped like a hi^med moon, and covered 
with the terraces and gardens of the lower city ; while on another slope 
Bezetha, or the new city, stretched further north towards the open 
country. 

The aspect of the city had changed but little when, thirty-seven years 
later, the Roman eagles gathered round their prey. But during these 
years the Jews, as if maddened by the sacred blood for which they had 
thirsted so fiercely, had been plunging deeper and deeper into sin ar d 



44 GREA T E VENTS 

wretchedness. At last, goaded by outrage and insult, they had risen 
against their Roman masters ; and the great Vespasian, a general trained 
in German and British wars, had been sent by Nero to tame their stub- 
born pride. Moving with his legions from Antioch to Ptolemais, Le was 
there joined by his son Titus, who brought forces from Egypt. 
67 Galilee and Perea were subdued with some trouble and delay ; 
A.D. and the conqueror, having drawn a circle of forts round Jeri:« 
salem, was at Cesarea, preparing for the last great blow, when 
he heard the news of Nero's death. 

The murder of Galba, the suicide of Otho, and the seizure of Rome by 
the glutton Vitellius and his plundering soldiers, followed in quick suc- 
cession. The army in Palestine then proclaimed Vespasian emperor. He 
hastened to secure Alexandria, the second city in the empire, and having 
heard while there that Vitellius was dead, and that the people of Rome 
were holding feasts in his own honor, he set out for Italy. So the siege 
of Jerusalem was left to Titus. 

Mustering his forces at Cesarea, and dividing them into three bands, he 
marched for the doomed city. Arrived there, he fortified three camps — 
one on the north, one on the west, and one, garrisoned by the loth Legion, 
on the Mount of Olives. Upon this last the Jews made a sally as the 
soldiers were digging the trenches ; but they were soon beaten down the hill. 

While the trumpets were blowing at Cesarea, and the clang of the 
Roman march was shaking the land, murder, and outrage, and cruel 
terror filled all Jerusalem. Robbers, calling themselves zealots, had 
flocked in from the country. Eleazar, at the head of one set of these, 
held the inner court of the temple. John of Gischala, another leader of 
ruffians, occupying ground somewhat lower, poured constant showers of 
darts and stones into the holy house, often killing worshippers as they 
stood at the very altar. In this mad war, houses full of corn were burned, 
and misery of every kind was inflicted on the wretched people. In de- 
spair they called in Simon of Gerasa to their aid, and thus there were three 
hostile factions within the walls. 

The great feast of the Passover came, and the temple was thrown open 
to the thousands who crowded from ever}'^ corner of the land to offer up 
their yearly sacrifice. Mingling in disguise with the throng, with weapons 
under their clothes, John's party gained entrance into the sacred court, 
and soon drove out their foes. The poor worshippers, all trampled and 
bleeding, escaped as best they could. John remained master of the 
temple, and the three factions were reduced to two. 

Within the city there were above twenty-three thousand fighting men — a 
strong body if united. There was, indeed, a temporary union, when they 
saw the Roman soldiers busily cutting down all the trees in the suburbs, 



OF HISTORY. 



45 



rolling their trunks together, and to the top of the three great banks thus 
formed dragging the huge siege-engines of the time — rams, cavapults, and 
balists. 

The siege opened in three places at once on the 22d day of Xanthic.us, 
or Nisan. The Roman missiles poured like hail upon the city ; 
but none were so terrible as the stones, sometimes M'eighing a April, 
talent, which were cast from the east by the loth Legion. The 70 
Jewish watchmen, soon learning to know these by their white A.D. 
color and tremendous whiz, used to cry out, " The son cometh ;" 
then all in the way fell flat, and little mischief was done. But tho, 
Romans, not to be tricked, painted the stones black, and battered on 
more destructively than ever. The Jews replied with some engines 
planted on the wall by Simon, flung torches at the Roman banks, and 
made an unavailing sally at the Tower of Ilippicus. 

Three towers of heavy timber, covered with thick iron plates, were then 
erected by Titus. Rising higher than the walls, and carrying light en- 
gines, they were used to drive the Jews from their posts of defence. The 
falling of one of these at midnight with a loud crash spread alarm through 
the Roman camp, but it did not last long. At dawn the rams were swing- 
ing away, and pounding against the shaking wall, which, on the fifteenth 
day of the siege, yielded to Nico (the conqueror), as the most ponderous 
of the Roman engines was called by the Jews. The legions, pouring 
through the breach, gained the first wall. , 

Pitching his camp within the city, Titus then attacked the second wall,' 
where he was vigorously met both by Simon and John. Sorties and wall 
fighting filled up every hour of daylight ; and both sides lay by night in 
their armor, snatching hasty and broken sleep. In five days the second 
wall was forced. Titus passed within it at the head of one thousand men ; 
but the Jews set on him so hotly in the narrow streets, that they soon 
drove him out again. Easily elated, they exulted greatly in this success ; 
but, four days later, the second wall was retaken, and levelled to the 
ground. 

Then followed a pause of five days, during which the Romans, having 
received their subsistence money, paraded, as their custom was, in glitter- 
ing armor. The wall and the temple-roofs were paved with pale Jewish 
faces, beholding nothing in the splendid si"ght but terror and despair. 
The attack was renewed at John's monument and the Tower of Antonia. 
At the same time Josephus, a noble Jew, from whose graphic history this 
sketch is drawn, went to the walls, as he had done before — as he did more 
than once again, to plead with his countrymen. But all in vain, for the 
zealots were bent on holding out, and slew such of the people as they 
found trying to desert. 



46 GREAT EVENTS 

Famine had long before begun its deaily work. Mothers were already 
snatching the morsels from their children's lips. The robbers broke open 
every shut door in search of food, and tortured most horribly all who were 
thought to have a hidden store. Gaunt men, who had crept beyond the 
walls by night to gather a few wild herbs, were often robbed by these 
wretches of the poor handful of green leaves for which they had risked 
their lives. Yet, in spite of this, the starving people went out into the 
valleys in such number's that the Romans caught them at the rate of five 
hundred a day, and crucified them before the walls, until there was no 
room to plant, and no wood to make another cross. What a fearful re- 
tribution for that mad cry, uttered, some seven and thirty years before, at 
Pilr te's judgment-seat : " His blood be on us and on our children !" 

The Romans then raised four great banks. BiK these, which cost 
seventeen days' labor, were all destroyed — two by John, who dug a mine 
below them, and set fire to the timbers of its roof—and the others by three 
brave Jews, who rushed out upon the engines, torch in hand. And then 
it was "pull Roman, pull Jew," and heavy blows were dealt round the 
red-hot rams. The Romans were driven to their camp, but the guard at 
the gate stood firm ; and Titus, taking the Jews in flank, compelled them 
to retreat. 

This serious loss made Titus resolve to hem in the city with a wall. It 
was built in the amazingly short time of three days. The attack was then 
directed against the Tower ofeAntonia, which stood at the northwest cor- 
ner of the temple, on a slippery rock, fifty cubits high. Four new banks 
were raised. Some Roman soldiers, creeping in with their shields above 
their heads, loosened four of the foundation stones ; and the wall, battered 
at all day, fell suddenly in the night. But there was another wall inside. 
One Sabinus, a little black Syrian soldier, led a forlorn hope of eleven 
men up to this in broad noonday, gained the top, and put the Jews to 
flight ; but tripping over a stone he was killed, as were three of his band. 

A night or two after, sixteen Romans stole up the wall, slew the guards, 
and blew a startling trumpet-blast. The Jews fled. Titus and his men, 
swarming up the ruined wall, dashed at the entrance of the temple, where, 
for ten hours, a bloody fight raged. Julian, a centurion of Bithynia, attack- 
ing the Jews single-handed, di-ove them to the inner court ; but the sharp 
nails in his shoes having caused him to fall with a clang on the marble 
floor, they turned back and slew him, with many wounds. Then, follow- 
ing up their success, they drove the Romans out of the temple, but not 
from the Tower of Antonia. 

Strange omens had foretold the coming doom. A star, shaped like a 
sword, had hung for a year over the city. A brazen gate of the innei 
court, which twenty men could hardly move, had swung back on its 



OF HISTORY. 47 

hinges of itself. Shadows, resembling chariots and soldiers attacking a 
city, had appeared in the sky one evening before sunset. And at Penre- 
co3t, as the priests were going by night into the inner court, they heard 
murmuring voices, as of a great crowd, saying, " Let us go hence." 

After the Roman wall was built, the famine and the plague grew worse. 
Young men dropped dead in the streets. Piles of decaying corpses filled 
the lanes, and were thrown by tens of thousands over the walls. No 
herbs were to be got now. Men, in the rage of hunger, gnawed their 
shoes, the leather of their shields, and even old wisps of hay. Robbers, 
■with wolfish eyes, ransacked every dwelling, and, when one day they came 
clamoring for food to the house of Mary, the daughter of Eleazar, a high- 
born lady of Perea, she set before them the roasted flesh of her own infant 
son, whom she had slain. " This," screamed she, " is mine own son. Eat 
of this food, for I have eaten of it myself." Brutal and rabid though they 
were, they fled in horror from the house of that wretched mother. 

At last the daily sacrifice ceased to be offered, and the war closed round 
the temple. The cloisters were soon burned. Six days' battering had 
no effect on the great gates ; fire alone could clear a path for the eagles. 
A day was fixed for the grand assault ; but on the evening be- 
fore (loth Lous, or Ab), the Romans having penetrated as far Aug. 
as the holy house, a soldier, climbing on the shoulders of an- 70 
other, put a blazing torch to one of the golden windows of the A.D. 
north side. The building was soon a sheet of leaping flames ; 
and Titus, who had always desired to save the temple, came running from 
his tent, but the din of war and the crackling flames prevented his voice 
from being heard. On over the smoking cloisters trampled the legions, 
fierce for plunder. The Jews sank in heaps of dead and dying roifnd the 
altar, which dripped with their blood. More fire was thrown upon the 
hinges of the gate ; and then no human word or hand could save the house 
where God Himself had loved to dwell. Never did the stars of night look 
down on a more piteous scene. Sky and hill, and town and valley, were 
all reddened with one fearful hue. The roar of flames, the shouts of 
Romans, the shrieks of wounded zealots, rose wild into the scorching air, 
and echoed among the mountains all around. But sadder far was the wail 
of broken hearts which burst from the streets below, when m.arble wall 
and roof of gold came crashing down, and the temple was no more. Then, 
and only then, did the Jews let go the trust — that God would d'iliver His 
ancient people, smiting the Romans with some sudden blow. 

The upper city then became a last refuge for the despairing remnant of 
the garrison. Simon and John were there ; but the arrogant tyrants were 
broken down to trembling cowards. And when, after eighteen days' work, 
banks were raised, and the terrible ram began to sound anew on the ram- 



48 GREAT EVENTS 

pans, tb.e panic-struck Jews fled like hunted foxes to hide in the caves ol 
th'^ hill. The eagle.= flew victorious to the summit of the citadel, while 
Jewish blood ran so deep down Zion that burning houses were quenched 
in the red stream. 

The siege lasted one hundred and thirty-four days, during which one 
million one hundred thousand Jews perished, and ninety-seven thousand 
were taken captive. Some were kept to grace the Roman triumph ; some 
were sent to toil in the mines of Egypt ; some fought in provincial theatres 
with gladiators and wild beasts ; those under seventeen were sold as 
slaves. John was imprisoned for life ; Simon, after being led in triumph, 
was slain at Rome. 

It was a gay holiday when the emperor and his son, crowned with 
laurel and clad in purple, passed in triumph through the crowded streets 
of Rome. Of the many rich spoils adorning the pageant none were gazed 
on with more curious eyes than the golden table, the candlestick with 
seven branching lamps, and the holy book of the law, rescued from the 
flames of the temple. It was the last page of a tragic story. The Mosaic 
dispensation had come to a close, and the Jews — homeless ever since, yet 
always presei-ving an indestructible nationality — were scattered among the 
cities of earth, to be the Shylocks of a day that is gone by, and the 
Rothschilds of our own happier age. 

ROMAN EMPERORS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 

Augustus 

Tiberius 14 

Caligula 37 

Claudius 41 

Nero 54 

Galea 68 

Otho 69 

VlTELLIUS 69 

Vespasian 69 

Titus 79 

Domitian 81 

Nerva 96 

'rHAjAN ... 98 



OF HISTORY. . 49 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

Central Point: DIOCLETUN'S PERSECUTION. 303, A.D. 

?be fire of Rome — Persecution under Domitian— Trajan's edict — Torture inflisted — Martyr- 
dom of Polycarp — The miracle of rain — Persecution at Lyons — Story of Perpetna — Rage 
of pagan mobs — The Decian storm — Valerian's edict — Aurelian— The last persecution — 
Edict of Galerius. 

Eleven persecutions of the Christians — some fiercer, others fainter^ 
marked the dying struggles of the many-headed monster. Paganism. More 
than three centuries were filled with the sound and sorrows of the great 
conflict. 

1. In the tenth year of the brutal Nero's reign the first great persecu- 
tion of Christians took place. A fire, such as never had burned before, 
consumed nearly the whole city of Rome ; and men said that the em- 
peror's own hand had kindled the flames out of mere wicked 

sport, and that, while the blazing city was filled with shrieks of 64 
pain and terror, he sat calmly looking on and singing verses A.D. 
on the burning of Troy to the music of his lyre. 

This story finding ready acceptance among the homeless and beggared 
people, the tyrant strove, by inflicting tortures on the Christians, to turn 
the suspicion from himself upon them. On the pretence that they were 
guilty of the atrocious crime, he crucified many ; some, covered with the 
skins of wild beasts, were worried to death by dogs in the theatres ; ten- 
der girls and gray-haired men were torn by tigers, or hacked with the 
swords of gladiators. But the worst sight was seen in the gardens of 
Nero, where chariot races were held by night, in which the emperor him- 
self, dressed as a common driver, whipped his horses round the goal. 
There stood poor men and women of the Christian faith, their clothes 
smeared with pitch, or other combustible, all blazing as torches to throw 
light on the sport of the imperial demon. In the wider persecutions that 
followed, for this one was chiefly confined to Rome, there was perhaps no 
scene of equal horror. 

2. By Domitian, sixth in succession from Nero, proceedings of great 
severity, but of a character less brutal, were taken against the Christians. 
It was a harvest-time for the spies, who crept everywhere, and grew rich 
with the spoils of the dead and the exiles. The cousin and the niece of 
the emperor, accused only of " Atheism and Jewish manners," were among 
the sufferers. Many were banished ; among them St. John the Evangelist. 

3 



50 , GREAT EVENTS 

Driven, about 95 A.D., to the isle of Patmos, he saw there those visions of 
glory and mystery recorded in the book of Revelation. The two grand- 
sons of St. Jude, who was the brother of our Saviour, were brought before 
a Roman tribunal, charged with aiming at royal power, for they traced 
descent from David. But when they showed their hands hardened with 
honest toil on their little farm, they were sent home unhurt. 

3. Under the gentle Nerva the Christians lived in peace, and spying 
ceased to be a well-paid business ; but when Trajan, a stern Spanish 
soldier, wore the purple, evil days returned, as yet, however, only in a 

single province. Pliny the younger, appointed proconsul of 

110 Bithynia and Pontus, found himself at a loss how to deal with 

A.D. the Christians, who were very numerous under his rule. He 

wrote to the emperor, saying that the superstition — so he called 

it — ^had spread everywhere among rich and poor ; that the temples were 

empty, and the sacrifices were hardly ever offered. 

But the worst he could say of the Christians, although he seems to have 
taken great pains to know all about them, was that they used to meet on 
a certain day (Sunday) to sing a hymn in honor of Christ ; that they bound 
one another by a vow not to steal, or commit adultery, or break their 
words, or defraud any one ; and that on the same evening they met at a 
simple and innocent meal. The fact that a skillful lawyer, as Pliny was, 
did not know how to deal with the Christians, shows that there were no 
special laws as yet framed against them. 

The answer of Trajan must be looked on as the first edict of persecu- 
tion. It declared that the Christians were not to be sought for by the 
police, like common criminals ; but that, when openly accused and con- 
victed, they were to be punished. However, before receiving the imperial 
rescript, Pliny had let loose the terrors of the law. He demanded that 
the Christians, cursing Christ, should burn incense and pour wine before 
the statues of the emperor and the gods. Those who refused died ; some, 
of weaker faith, yielded to the terror of the hour. 

4. Early in the reign of Adrian, who came to the throne in 117, the rage 
of the pagan mobs burst out upon the Christians with a force which had 
been gathering for years. Those attacks, which were encouraged by the 
common belief that Christianity was now condemned by law, took place 
especially in Asia Minor. Two learned Christians approached the throne 
with apologies or defences of their faith, when the emperor came into their 
neighborhood on one of the constant and rapid journeys for which he was 
remarkable. Influenced, perhaps, by these addresses, but rather by his 
love of justice and order, he published an edict, forbidding Christians to 
be arrested on mere rumor, and ordering all false informers to be heavily 
punished However, in Palestine, Bar-cochba, an impostor, who claimed 



OF HISTORl. 51 

to be the Messiah, put many Christians to a cruel death, because they re- 
fused to follow his flag of rebellion. 

The reign of the elder Antonine was a time of comparative peace to the 
Christians ; but when Marcus_ Aurelius, the stoic philosopher, became 
emperor, in 161, there was a change. Active search was made for Chris- 
tians. Torture began to be inflicted on them. It seemed, indeed, as if 
both the rulers and the people of pagan Rome were beginning to realize, 
though as yet vaguely and dimly, the growth of that stone, cut out with- 
out hands, which was destined soon to shiver the idols in all their temples, 
and smite their iron empire into dust. 

5. At Smyrna the Christian Church suffered heavily. Yielding to the 
rage of the heathens and the Jews, the proconsul flung the followers of 
Jesus to wild beasts, or burned them alive. The noblest of the 

noble victims was Bishop Polycarp, a man bending under the 167 
weight of nearly ninety years. When seized he asked for an A.D, 
hour to pray. They gave him two, then hurried him on an ass 
towards the city. The chief of police, meeting him on the way, took him 
up into his chariot, and vainly strove to turn him from the faith. On his 
refusal he was flung so violently to the ground that a bone of his leg was 
injured. Before the tribunal, amid a crowd howling for his blood, he was 
urged to curse Christ. " Eighty-six years," said he, " have I served Him, 
and He has done me nothing but good ; and how could I curse Him, my 
Lord and Saviour?" Before the flames rose round him, he cried aloud, 
thanking God for judging him worthy to drink of the cup of Christ. 

The legend of the " thundering Legion," which belongs to this period, 
probably rests on some historical foundation, though handed down to us 
manifestly in a somewhat mythical form. While Marcus Aurelius, so the 
story runs, was warring with some Gennan tribes, his soldiers, marching 
one day under a burning sun, were parched with deadly thirst. 
The foe, hovering near, threatened an attack. A terrible death 174 
seemed to stare them in the face, when a band of Christian A.D. 
soldiers, falling on their knees, prayed for help. A peal of 
thunder, accompanied with heavy rain, was the immediate, and, as it 
seemed, miraculous response from the skies ; and the soldiers, catching 
the precious drops in their helmets, drank and were saved. 

6. This event is said to have softened the emperor's feelings towards the 
Christians ; but the change, if any, was very slight, for three 

years later, a fierce persecution arose in the heart of Gaul, at 177 
Lyons and Vienne. Pothinus, the bishop, a feeble old man of A.D. 
ninety, died in a dungeon. Those Christians who were Roman 
citizens enjoyed the privilege of death by the sword ; the rest were torn 
by wild beasts. The friends of the dead were denied even the poor con- 



52 



GREAT EVENTS 



solation of burying their loved ones ; for the mutilated bodies were burned 
to ashes, and scattered upon the waters of the Rhone. One Symphorian, 
a young man of Autun, a town not far from Lyons, was beheaded for re- 
fusing to fall on his knees before the car of the idol Cybele. As he went 
to execution, his soul was strengthened by his mother's voice, crying, " My 
son, my son, be steadfast ; look up to Him who dwells in heaven. To- 
day thy life is not taken from thee, but raised to a better ! " 

7. The reign of Septimius Severus was marked by a terrible 
202 persecution in Africa. By the same emperor a law was passed, 
A.D. forbidding any one to become either a Jew or a Christian. 

From many touching stories of those bitter days take one. 
A young mother, named Perpetua, aged only twenty-two, was arrested at 
Carthage for being a Christian. Her father was a pagan ; but from her 
mother's lips she had learned to love Christ. When she was dragged be- 
fore the magistrate, her gray-haired father prayed her earnestly to recant ; 
but, pointing to a vessel that lay on the ground, she said, " Can I call this 
vessel what it is not ? " " No." " Neither, then, can I call myself any- 
thing but a Christian." Her little baby was taken from her, and she was 
cast into a dark, crowded dungeon. There was no light in her desolate 
heart for some days, until her child was given to her again ; and then, in 
her own tender words, " the dungeon became a palace." Before the trial 
came on, her father pleaded again with tears, and kisses, and words of 
agony, seeking to turn her from what he considered her obstinate folly. 
But all in vain. Neither her father's tears nor her baby's cries could wean 
her soul from Christ ; and she died with many others, torn to pieces in the 
circus by savage beasts, amid the yells of still more savage men. 

8. Maximin, the Thracian giant, who gained the purple by murder in 
235, persecuted those Christian bishops who had been friends of his pre- 
decessor. In many provinces, too — Pontus and Cappadocia, for instance — 
the people, roused to fury by severe earthquakes, fell upon the Christians, 
crying out that their blasphemies had brought these judgments on the 
land. 

9. Conquering Philip the Arabian, Decius Trajan ascended the throne ; 
and then the long calm which the Christians of Rome had enjoyed was 

rudely broken. One great use of these persecutions was the 
249 sifting of the Church — the driving out of those who, in peaceful 
A.D. days, had become Christians from convenience merely or vanity. 
The gold was tested and refined in a fiery furnace. Decius 
seems to have resolved utterly to destroy Christianity. His hatred of the 
bishops was intense. Fabianus, the Roman bishop, was martyred. Both 
in Rome and the provinces imprisonment and torture awaited every faith- 
ful witness ; and among the refinements of torture, hunger and thirst 



OF HISTORY. 53 

came into common use. But a rebellion in Macedonia and a Gothic war 
turned the attention of the emperor from the Christians, and by his death 
they soon gained a short breathing time. 

10. In the fourth year of Valerian an edict was issued in unmistakable 
VioxAs—" Let bishops, presbyters, and deacons at once be ptit to 

the sword!' The aim of this edict seems to have been to check 258 
Christianity by cutting off the heads of the Church. Sixtus, the a.d. 
Roman bishop, and four deacons were the first to suffer. But 
a more distinguished victim was Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who, aftei 
having escaped the Decian storm, was now beheaded for refusing to sac- 
rifice to the pagan idols. Valerian having been defeated by Sapor, the 
Persian king, whose triumphal car he was forced to drag in chains, died 
in the far East. His son Gallienus restored to the Christians their burial- 
grounds, and other property taken from them in the late reign. This was 
a great step, for it was a public acknowledgment that the Christian Churcn 
was a legal society ; and it no doubt did much to save Christians from the 
wrath of the low-born fire-worshipper Aurelian, who became Emperor in 
270. A bigot by nature, and bent upon persecution, he yet allowed five 
years to slip away without striking a blow at the cross. His murder in 
275 left forty years of peace to the Church, which, like a sturdy young 
oak-tree, amid all these great and frequent tempests, had been only strik- 
ing its roots deeper, and taking a firmer grasp of the soil. 

11. Fiercest, widest, and last, was the persecution that broke out under 
Diocletian and Maximian. On the day of the feast Terminalia, 

at early dawn, the splendid church of Nicomedia, a city of Feb. 23, 
Bithynia, where Diocletian had fixed his court, was broken 303 
open ; all copies of the Bible found there were burned, and A.D. 
the walls were levelled to the ground by the imperial soldiers. 
This was done at the instigation of Galerius, the emperor's son-in-law. 
Next day a terrible edict appeared, commanding all Christian churches to 
be pulled down, all Bibles to be flung into the fire, and all Christians to 
be degraded from rank and honor. Scarcely was the proclamation posted 
up, when a Christian of noble rank tore it to pieces. For this he was 
roasted to death. 

A fire, which broke out in the palace twice within a fortnight, was made 
a pretence for very violent dealings with the Christians. Those who re- 
fused to burn incense to idols were tortured or slain. Over all the empire 
the persecution raged, except in Gaul, Britain, and Spain, where Constan- 
tius Chlorus ruled. Yet there, too, it was slightly felt. Even after the 
abdication of the emperors in 305, Galerius kept the fires blazing ; and so 
far did this pagan go in his miserable zeal, that he caused all the food in 
the markets to be sprinkled with wine or water used in sacrifice, that thus 



54 KjREA T E VENTS 

the Christians might be driven into some contact with idol-worship. With 
little rest for eight years, the whip and the rack, the tigers, the hooks of 
steel, and the red-hot beds, continued to do their deadly work. And then, 
in 311, when life was fading from his dying eye, and the blood of martyrs 
lay dark upon his trembling soul, Galerius published an edict, permitting 
Christians to worship God in their own way. This was the turning-point 
in the great strife ; and henceforward Roman heathenism rapidly decayed 
until it was finally abolished by Theodosius in 394. 

SOMAN EMPERORS OF THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTUBIESL 

SECOND CENTURY. 

A.D. 

Trajan 

Adrian 117 

Antoninus Pius 138 

Marc. Aurelius and L. Verus 161 

commodus 180 

Pertinax 193 

S»^ERUS 193 

THIRD CENTURY. 
Caracalla and Geta 2H 

Macrinus 217 

Heliogabalus 218 

Alex. Severus 222 

Maximin 235 

gordian and his son 237 

BALBINUS AND PUPIENUS 237 

gordian the younger 238 

Philip the Arabian 244 

Decius 24c 

Gallus and his Son 251 

^milianus 253 

Valerian and his Son 253 

Gallienus 260 

Claudius II 268 

Quintillus 270 

Aurelian 270 

Interregnum for nine months 275 

Tacitus 275 

Florian 276 



OF HISTORY. 55 

iniOBUS 276 

Carus 282 

Carinus and Numerian 283 

Diocletian 284 

Maximian taken as a Colleague 286 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REIGN OF CONST ANTINE THE GREAT. 
Central Point: REMOVAL OP THE SEAT OP EMPIRE TO CONSTANTINOPLE, 330 A.D. 

Birth and early days — Proclaimed emperor — Six emperors at once— Battle of the Red Rocks- 
Vision of the cross — Emperors reduced to two — Death of Licinins — Christianity favored — 
Pirst general council— Site of the new capital— Its dedication— Constantine's policy— His 
last years— His death— His character. 

The reign of Constantine is remarkable in Roman history for three 
reasons : he was the first emperor professing Christianity ; he adopted a 
new policy, in which we can detect some foreshadows of the speedy decay 
of the western empire ; he founded a new capital, thus giving a powerful 
impulse to that separation of the empire into east and west, which began 
under Diocletian in 286, and was completed in 364, when the brothers 
Valens and Valentinian wore the purple. 

Constantine the Great was bom at Naissus in Dacia ; some say at 
Drepanum in Bithynia. His father was Constantius Chlorus 
(the Sallow), who ruled Gaul, Britain, and Spain ; his mother 274 
Helena was the daughter of an innkeeper. A.D. 

The mother being divorced, the son, who shared her fall, 
was left at eighteen with little fortune but his sword. Taking service 
under Diocletian, he fought his way up in Egyptian and Persian wars to 
be a tribune of the first rank ; and so popular did the brave youth become 
with the soldiers, that Galerius, Emperor of the East, began to look upon 
him with a jealous eye. Just then came word that Constantius, whose 
health was failing, wished to see his long-estranged son. Setting out at 
night from Nicomedia, Constantine hurried overland to join his father at 
Boulogne. Together they crossed to Britain, where soon afterwards the 
father died at York. 

Constantine, at once proclaimed emperor by the soldiers of 306 
the West, wrote, announcing the event, to Galerius, who in A.D. 
answer acknowledged him as his father's successor, but con- 
ferred on him only the title of CcBsar, reserving the higher step Au^tstui 
for a favorite friend. This, no doubt, galled Constantine at the moment ; 
but, like a man of prudence, he was content to bide his time. 



56 GREAT EVENTS 

Two years later the world saw a strange sight, without parall;! before or 
since — six emperors dividing the Roman domiijion among 
308 them. In the West were Maximian, his son Maxentius, and 
A.D. Constantine ; in the East Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin. 
Maximian, once the colleague of Diocletian, had already be- 
stowed on Constantine the hand of his daughter Fausta, and the title of 
Augustus. 

But among six emperors there could be little union. Every man's hand 

was soon turned against his fellow. The first to die was old Maximian, 

who, falling into the hands of his son-in-law at Marseilles, was there slain 

in secret. The death of Galerius, from disease caused by in- 

312 temperance, reduced the list still further. And then Constan- 
A.D, tine, with a sword sharpened by six years' successful war in 

Gaul, crossed the Alps to do battle with the effeminate Max- 
entius. Susa, at the foot of Mount Cenis, was stormed in a single day. 
Forty miles further on, at Turin, he scattered an army strong in mail-clad 
cavalry. Milan and Verona then fell ; and the way to Rome was open. 

At the Red Rock^ (Saxa Rubra), nine miles from Rome, he found the 
army of Maxentius in line of battle, the Tiber guarding their rear. Con- 
stantine led on his Gallic horse, and made short work of the unwieldy 
masses of cavalry that covered his rival's flanks. The Italian footmen of 
the centre then fled, almost without striking a blow. Thousands were 
driven into the Tiber. The brave Prsetorians, despairing of mercy, died 
in heaps where they stood. A bridge near the modern Ponte Milvio was 
so choked with flying soldiers, that Maxentius. in trying to struggle 
through the crowd, was pushed into the water, and drowned by his 
weighty armor. 

Writers of the time tell us that, before this battle, Constantine saw tnc 
vision of a cross hung in the sky, with the Greek words, ^Ev Tovrao viKOC 
("In this conquer"), written in letters of light. Henceforth his troops 
marched under a standard called Labarum, the top of which was adorned 
with a mystic X, representing at once the cross and the initial letter of the 
Greek word Christ. 

Entering Rome in triumph, he began at once to secure his victory. The 

Praetorian guards were disbanded, and scattered forever. The tax, which 

Maxentius had occasionally levied on the senate under the name of a free 

gift, was made lasting. Three of the six emperors now re- 

313 mained. But war soon breaking out between Maximin and 
A.D. Licinius, the former was defeated near Heraclea, and died in 

a few months at Tarsus, most likely by poison. Two emperors 
then shared the power between them ; Constantine holding the West, and 
Licinius the East. 



OF HISTORY. 57 

A qaarrel soon arose, as might be expected from the nature of the men— 
Oonstantine, pushing, clever, and by no means troubled with a tender con- 
science ; Licinius, underhand, artful, dangerous. It made no matter 
that the sister of Constantine was the wife of Licinius. War was begun. 
At Cibalis in Pannonia, and on the plain of Mardia in Thrace, Constan- 
tine was victorious ; and the beaten emperor was compelled to yield, as 
the price of peace, all his European dominions except Thrace. 

There was then peace between the rivals for nearly eight years, during 
which the most notable event was a war with the Goths and Sarmatians 
(322). They had long been mustering on the north bank of the Danube, 
and now poured their swarms upon Illyricum. But they had to deal with 
a resolute soldier, who drove them with hard and heavy blows back over 
the broad stream, and followed them into their strongest holds. 

Then, in the flush of victory, he turned his sword again upon Licinius. 
At once all Thrace glittered v/ith arms, and the Hellespont was white 
with sails. A victoiy, gained by Constantine at Adrianople, drove the 
Emperor of the East into Byzantium. Besieged there, he held out a while 
but, the passage of the Hellespont being forced by Crispus, Constantine's 
eldest son, who led a few small ships to attack a great fleet of three- 
deckers, he was forced into Asia, where he was finally van- 
quished on the hills of Chiysopolis, now Scutari. In spite of 324 
his wife's prayers and tears he was executed a few months later A.D. 
at Thessalonica, when his death left Constantine sole master 
of the Roman world. 

This emperor, influenced perhaps by his mother's early teaching, favored 
Christianity. He did not openly forbid Paganism, but chose rather to 
work by ridicule and neglect. Some rites he abolished, and some temples 
he closed, but only those notorious for fraud or indecency. Without de- 
pressing Paganism, he raised the new creed to the level of the old. With 
public money he repaired the old churches and built new ones, so that in 
every great city the Pagan temples were faced by Christian churches, of 
architecture richer and more beautiful than ever. The Christian clergy 
were freed from taxes. Sunday was proclaimed a day of rest. And, to 
crown all, he removed the seat of government to a new capital, which was 
essentially a Christian city, for nowhere did a Pagan temple blot the 
streets, shining with the white marble of Proconnesus. 

In the controversies of the Church the emperor took an active 825 
but changeable part, and attended in person the first general a.d. 
council of bishops, held at Nicjea, in Bithynia, to decide on 
the case of Arius, who denied the divinity of Christ. Arius was banished ; 
but, three years afterwards, Constantine, who regarded the whole question 
as one of slight importance, restored him to his church at Alexandria. 

3* 



5 8 GREA T E VENTS 

The spot where Byzantium had ah-eady stood for more than nine hun- 
dred years was chosen as the site of the new capital. While besieging 
Licinius there, Constantine saw how, from that central position, a strong 
hand, wielding the sceptre of the world, could strike east or west with 
equal suddenness and force. At the southern end of the Bosphorus a pro- 
montory of the Thracian shore — washed on the south by the Sea of Mar- 
mora (then called Propontis), and on the north by the fine harbor of the 
Golden Horn — runs to within six hundred yards of Asia. Seven hills rise 
there ; and on these the city lay, commanding at once two great continents 
and two great inland seas. 

The emperor, spear in hand, heading a long line of nobles, marked out 
the boundary of the wall. As mile after mile went by, all wondered at the 
growing space ; yet he still went on, " I shall advance," said he, " till the 
invisible guide who marches before me thinks right to stop." 

Gold without stint was lavished on the new buildings. Bronzes and 
marbles, wrought by the chisels of Phidias and Lysippus, were stolen from 
Greece and Asia to adorn the public walks. When those senators, whom 
the gifts and invitations of the emperor had induced to remove from 
Rome, reached the shores of the Bosphorus, they found waiting 
May 11, to receive them palaces built exactly after the model of those 
330 they had left behind. On the day of dedication the city re- 
A.D. ceived the name of New Rome ; but this title was soon ex- 
changed for that borne ever since — Constantinople. One result 
of this great change, which reduced Rome to a second-rate city, was to 
concentrate, for a time, in the old capital, more intensely than ever, all 
the bitterness of paganism. The new capital soon became the centre of a 
separate empire, which survived the old for nearly a thousand years. 

The new policy of Constantine was marked by three chief features. 
I. He scattered titles of nobility with an unsparing hand, so that there 
was no end of " Illustrious," " Respectable," " Most Honorable," " Most 
Perfect," " Egregious," men about the court. The Asiatic fashion of pil- 
ing up adjectives and nouns to make swelling names of honor became all 
the rage ; and on every side was heard, " Your Gravity," or " Your Sin- 
cerity," or " Your Sublime and Wonderful Magnitude." 2. He laid direct 
and heavier taxes upon the people. Forty millions were poured into his 
treasury every year. These taxes, paid chiefly in gold, but also in kind, 
were collected by the curials, men high in the magistracy of the towns ; 
and if there was any deficiency, they were compelled to make it up out of 
their own property. 3. In the army great and fatal changes were made. 
The military service was separated from the civil government, and placed 
under the direction of eight masters-general. The famous legions were 
broken up into small bands. Numbers of Goths and other barbarians 



OF HISTORY. 5g 

were enlisted in the Roman service, and taught to use arms, which they 
afterwards turned upon their masters. And a distinction was made be- 
tween the troops of the court and the troops of the frontier. The latter, 
bearing all the hard blows, received but scanty rewards ; while the former, 
rejoicing in high pay, and living in cities, among baths and theatres, 
speedily lost all courage and skill. 

The last years of Constantine were occupied with a successful war 
against the Goths, undertaken in aid of the Sarmatians. Three hundred 
thousand of the latter nation were settled under Roman protection in 
Thrace and Macedonia, no doubt to serve as a rampart against the en- 
croachments of other tribes. 

Constantine died at Nicomedia, aged sixty-four. He is said 337 
to have been baptized on his death-bed by an Arian bishop. A.D. 
According to his own last request, his body was carried over to 
Constantinople ; and, while it lay there on a golden bed, a poor mockery 
of kingship, crowned and robed in purple, every day, at the usual hour of 
levee, the great officers of state came to bow before the lifeless clay. 

When we strip away the tinsel with which Eusebius and similar writers 
have decked the character of this man, we are forced to believe that there 
was little grand or heroic about him except his military skill. He slew 
his father-in-law ; and, in later days, meanly jealous of justly-won laurels, 
he hurried his eldest son, the gallant young Crispus, from a gay feast in 
Rome to die by a secret and sudden death. Many of his strokes of policy 
were terrible blunders, full of future ruin ; and his boasted profession of 
Christianity seems to have been scarcely better than a mere pretence 
made to serve the aims of an unresting and unscrupulous ambition. 

ROUAN EMPERORS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

A.D. 

Const ANTius and Galerius 305 

Constantine the Great 306 

He Sole Emperor , . . . 324 

Constantine II., Constans, and Constantius II 337 

Julian (the Apostate) 361 

Jovian 363 

WEST. 

Valentinian 364 

Gratian 367 

Valentinian II 375 

HoNORius 395 

east. 

Valens 364 

Theodosius 379 

Arcadius 395 



6o GREA7 EVENTS 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 

Central Point: THE SACK OF ROME BY ALARIC THE GOTH. 410 A, D. 

Early life of Julian— His great aim — Death and Character — Goths settled in Thrace — Death 
of Valens — Reign of Theodosins — Court at Ravenna — Three barbarian chiefs — Alaric the 
Goth — Britain, Spain, and Gaul lost — Vandals seize Africa — Attila the Hun — Genseric the 
Vandal — Ricimer — Last days of Pagan Rome— Causes of its fall. 

After the confused and bloody reign of the three sons of Constantine, 
Julian, the apostate, became emperor. He was the nephew of Coostan- 
tine. Narrowly escaping the massacre by which Constantine cut off so 
many uncles and cousins, he spent his early life in Asia Minor, where he 
was educated to be a Christian priest. But his later residence at Athens, 
where he studied deeply the philosophy of Plato, hardened him into a 
heathen. He began public life as governor of Gaul. At Lutetia (now 
Paris) he was saluted Augustus by his soldiers ; and in the next year be- 
came emperor, at the age of thirty (361). 

To raise the fallen gods was his great aim ; and to this he bent all the 
energies of no mean mind. He wrote satires against the Christians. He 
forbade them to teach schools. He shut their churches, and tried to fill 
the deserted shrines of Venus and Bacchus. But his scorn, and his 
anger, and his learning, were all thrown away. Amongst other efforts he 
tried to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, in order thus to prove those 
prophecies false, in which the Christians trusted. But balls of fire, burst- 
ing again and again from the earth, drove his workmen from the spot as 
often as they began to build. 

Julian died in the far East. In a skirmish with the Persians a dart 
struck him in the side, and he expired in his tent next night (363). 
Though we pity the poor little philosopher, who hugged darkness so ob- 
stinately to his soul, while the dayspring from on high was brightening 
round him, we cannot help laughing at his wretched vanity, when he 
speaks fondly in one of his books of his frowsy, uncombed hair, long nails, 
and ink-black hands, as if these were essential marks of genius and learn- 
ing. 

The final division of the empire under Valens and Valentinian has been 
already noticed. While the former ruled the East, the Goths — most 
civilized of the German tribes — gained a footing south of the Danube. A 
bos': of ugly Calmuc savages, with flat noses, and little, deep-sunk, black 
eyes, had swept down from the chilly tablelands of Siberia upon the ham- 



OF HISTORY. 6 1 

lets of the Goths, who lived where Moldavia and Wallachia now lie. 
These were the Huns. First overcoming the Alans — dwellers on the 
sandy steppes between the Volga and the Tanais (Don) — and filling their 
ranks with these conquered hordes, they fell upon the Goths, whose 
leaders were speedily slain or driven back before the rush. In despair the 
Goths flung themselves' on the pity of Valens, asking leave, in the humblest 
terms, to place the Danube between them and their hideous foes. Leave 
was granted, on condition that they should give up their children and 
their arms. The bargain was struck at once ; Roman 
boats were provided; and for many days and nights the 376 
broad river was torn into foam by the splash of unceasing oars. A.D. 
The fugitives, surrendering their children with little concern, 
gladly paid away all they had as bribes to the Roman officers, for leave to 
keep their araas ; and so nearly a million of fierce and hungiy warriors 
settled, sword in hand, within one of the great natural frontiers of the 
empire. 

Two years afterwards a Gothic army, under Fritigern, one of their 
judges or leaders, penetrated Thrace, and inflicted a severe defeat on the 
troops of Valens near Adrianople. The emperor himself, carried bleeding 
to a cottage close by, was there burnt by these remorseless foes. 

Theodosius, a Spaniard by birth, became emperor in 379. Invested by 
Gratian with the purple of the East, he set himself at once to repel the in- 
roads of the Goths ; and in four campaigns, by timely movements from his 
head-quarters at Thessalonica, he broke — for the time at least — the 
strength of these barbarians. The leading principle of his policy was to 
preserve, unbroken, the great frontier line, naturally marked out as the 
northern boundary of the empire by Mount Caucasus, the Black Sea, the 
Danube, and the Rhine. He was the first Roman emperor who was bap- 
tized in the true Trinitarian faith ; and is further remarkable for having 
put down, by rigorous laws, the last remnants of Paganism, and the Arian 
heresy, of which Constantinople was the chief seat and centre. But a rash 
and lawless massacre of the Thessalonians casts a dark blot upon his fame. 
He died of dropsy at Milan in 395. 

Nothing now stood between the Western Empire and ruin. So far back 
as the days of Maximian, Milan, in the rich plain of northern Italy, had 
been chosen as an imperial residence. And now, when Arcadius and 
Honorius, the feeble sons of Theodosius, shared the empire between them, 
the latter, terrified by the advance of Alaric the Goth, fled to Ravenna, a 
city on the Adriatic shore, some miles south of the Po, securely guarded 
by impassable swamps ; and there the shrunken and faded glory of the 
Csesars flickered for a few miserable years, during M'hich the ancient cj pi- 
tal, deserted and unhappy, suffered every imaginable insult. 



62 GREAT EVENTS 

Alaric the Goth, Attila the Hun, and Genseric the Vandal, were the 
great leaders of the barbarians who overthrew Rome. 

Starting from Thrace in 396, Alaric, a Visigoth of noble race and Chris- 
tian faith, overran all Greece. The Vandal, Stilicho, the chief of the 
Roman generals in the West, was sent to oppose him ; but the wily Goth 
escaped into Epirus, where he was hoisted on a shield by his soldiers, ac- 
cording to their national mode of electing a king. There, too, 
403 he received from Arcadius the title, Master-General of Eastern 
A.D. Illyricum. His next move was upon northern Italy. Hono- 
rius fled from Milan to Asti, and would have been captured 
there, but. for the rapid advance of Stilicho. The Goths, beaten at Pol- 
lentia and Verona, left Italy for a time. But, five years later, they march- 
ed, unopposed, to the very walls of Rome. Stilicho, the only match for 
Alaric, had just been murdered by his senseless master. Famine and 
plagiae raged within the city, until the Gothic king, agreeing to accept a 
ransom, retired to Tuscany, loaded with all the gold, silver, silk, scarlet 
cloth, and pepper, that could be gathered in Rome. Honorius, secure in 
Ravenna, refused to save Rome by any concessions ; and the Goths, seiz- 
ing Ostia, at the Tiber's mouth, again summoned the capital to surrender. 
This second siege was averted by the citizens agreeing to receive as a 
new emperor. Attains, the prefect of the city, who was nominated by Alaric. 
But this puppet ruler was soon degraded by the same strong hand that had 
set him up. Then, a band of Goths being cut to pieces neai 
Aug". 24, Ravenna, the long-blackening storm at length burst over 
410 Rome. In the dead of night hostile trumpets blew for the 
A.D. first time in her sleeping streets. And after six days of blood- 
shed and pillage, the clumsy baggage-waggons of Alaric went 
creaking southward along the Appian way, piled high with the richest 
spoils of Rome. All southern Italy was soon subdued ; but, before the 
conquering hordes could pass into Sicily, their leader died at Cozenza in 
Calabria. To make his grave a river was turned aside ; and when the 
water was again let flow into its bed over the dead king, the prisoners who 
had built his tomb were slain, that no one might be able to tell where the 
conqueror of Rome was laid. 

And now the great Western Empire was dissolving fast. Early in the 
fifth century three fragments broke off from the decaying trunk, not to 
die, but to start up with new and fresher life into three great kingdoms. 
Britain was left to itself. Spain was conquered by Sueves, Alans, and 
Vandals. Gaul was filled with Goths. Burgundians, and Franks. Adolph, 
brother-in-law of Alaric, marched under the colors of Honorius, whose 
sister he had married, to rescue Spain ; but he was murdered at Barcelona, 
Africa, too, was lost. The Roman general Boniface, revolting from 



OF HISTORY. 63 

Valentinian III , called Genseric and his Vandals over from Spain. Cross- 
ing the strait ir. Spanish vessels, the barbarian leader reviewed a motley 
force of fifty thousand on the Moorish plains. Vandals, Alans, Goths, 
were all there. Tawny Moors, who at first had looked on the white faces 
with fear, gradually joined their ranks. And the Donatists, a religious 
sect, writhing under persecution, gladly welcomed a protector in the Arian 
Genseric. Boniface, repenting of his haste only when it was too late, saw 
with dismay all the rich wheat-fields, upon which Rome depended mainly 
for her bread, laid waste from Tangier to Tripoli. In 431 Hippo Regius, 
a sea-port now called Bona, was bui-nt. Boniface, sailing to Italy, fell in 
battle with his rival Aetius. Carthage yielded to Genseric in 439 ; and 
soon African exiles were seen all through Italy and the East. 

Meanwhile Attila, a genuine Hun, with ugly face and strong squat 
frame, had gone forth from his log-house on the plain of Hungary at 
the head of half a million savages, to conquer the world. Westward to 
the Rhine, northward to the Baltic, eastward far beyond the Caspian, 
the terror of his name spread fast ; and ere long we find him in the 
suburbs of Constantinople, dictating insulting terms of peace to the trem- 
bling Theodosius II. (446). A year or two later, after the Huns had gone 
home, an embassy was sent over the Danube by the court of Constanti- 
noj&le to visit Attila in his wooden palace. Among them was an assassin, 
secretly charged to murder the royal Hun ; and this was the real business 
of the embassy. Though the treacherous design was detected, they were 
entertained with barbaric splendor, and the would-be murderer was dis- 
missed with contempt. 

In 450 Attila sent to both emperors the haughty message, " Attila com- 
mands thee to prepare a palace for his reception." Marcian, Emperor of 
the East, from whom arrears of tribute were also demanded, replied with 
spirit, " I have gold for my friends, and steel for my enemies." And so 
the Hun, preferring to begin with the easier task, fell upon the West. 
Honoria, a disgraced sister of Valentinian, maddened by her tedious ban- 
ishment to Constantinople, had before this sent him a ring, praying him to 
claim her as his wife, and set her free. Seizing this pretext, he demanded 
in her name half of the Western Empire, which was of course refused. 
Then gathering his Huns round him, he crossed the Rhine, pierced to the 
centre of Gaul, and began to shake the walls of Orleans with his battering- 
rami. Terror filled the town, until clouds of dust on the horizon marked 
the quick advance of a Roman and Gothic army under Aetius 
and Theodoric. Attila retreated at once to the plain of 451 
Chalons ; and there was fought one of the decisive battles of A.D. 
the world, resulting in the defeat of the Huns. Thus worsted 
in Gaul, Attila climbed the Alps into Italy. Aquileia and other cities 



64 GREAT EVENTS 

were laid in heaps. Milan and Pavia were robbed, but left standing ; and 
when the Hun was preparing to march upon Rome, Bishop Leo came 
with offers from the emperor to give up the required dowry or its value in 
money. Awestruck by the majesty of the priest, and remembering, no 
doubt, that his soldiers were becoming unstrung by the luxury of Italian 
life, and that the active Aetius was threatening him at every move, he 
agreed to return to Hungary, where soon afterwards he broke a blood- 
vessel. So died one, whose savage boast it was that grass never grew on 
a spot where his horse had trodden (453). His great empire, torn by in- 
testine wars, and pressed on by hordes of Ugri and Avars from Mount 
Ural, then fell to pieces. 

While Attila was threatening Rome on the north, Genseric, who was in 
alliance with the Hun, had cut down the woods of Mount Atlas, and built 
a fleet. Sweeping the Mediterranean, he conquered Sicily, made frequent 
descents upon the Italian coasts, and in 455, at the invitation of Eudoxia, 
who had been forced to marry Maximus, he cast anchor at the mouth of 
the Tiber. The purple, still called imperial, though sadly torn and be- 
draggled, had then been worn by Maximus for about three months. 
While the Vandals were advancing from Ostia to Rome, Bishop Leo, re- 
membering his influence over Attila, came out to meet them 
455 at the head of his clergy. But this could not save the city 
A.D. now. For fourteen days Vandals and Moors wrecked and 
pillaged without mercy. Exquisite bronzes were melted down ; 
glorious works of sculpture and architecture were wantonly dashed to 
pieces. Shiploads of treasure and crowds of captives were carried over 
the sea to Carthage. 

Why should we dwell on the sad story? For sixteen years (456-472) 

all real power rested with Ricimer, a barbarian soldier, who, during that 

time, set up four emperors. There was a gleam of hope when Majorian, 

first of these, made good laws, and relieved the pressure of the taxes ; but 

it faded in 461, when he died. Then came a time of worse perplexity 

and terror. In 472, forty days before his death, Ricimer sacked Rome. 

Three more inglorious names were added to the roll of emperors, that of 

Romulus Augustulus closing the list. He was a handsome youth, but 

he was nothing more ; and when Odoacer, a Goth of the tribe Heruli, 

came at the head of the Italian soldiers, threatening him in 

476 Ravenna, he yielded ignobly, content to retire to the villa of 

A.D. LucuUus at Misenum with a pension of six thousand pieces of 

gold. Then, " when Odoacer was proclaimed king of Italy, 

the phantom assembly, which still called itself the Roman Senate, sent 

back to Constantinople the tiara and purple robe, in sign that the Western 

Empire had passed away." * 

* White's Eighteen Christian Centuries. 



OF HISTORY. 65 

The division of the empire has been blamed as a great cause of this 
catastrophe ; but truer causes were the oppression of its own unwieldy 
weight and the canker of vicious luxury that had long been eating away 
the strength of its inner life. An empire, thus doubly enfeebled, with 
patched and rotten barriers, could not long withstand the unceasing tide 
of hardy tribes that came pouring, wave upon wave, from the swamps and 
forests of the north. 

THE LAST EMPERORS OF ROME. 

A.D. 
HONORIUS 

Valentinian III 425 

Maximus •'. 455 

AviTus 456 

Majorian 457 

LiBius Severus. 461 

Anthemius 467 

Olybius 472 

Glycerius 473 

Julius Nepos 474 

Romulus Augustulus 475-6 



CHAPTER VI. 

DOMESTIC LIFE IN IMPERIAL ROME. 

Roman houses— Furnitnre— Slaves— Male dress— Female dress- Meals and food— Manner of 
eating — Garlands and wine — Baths — Travelling — Chariot races— Gladiators — ^In-dooi 
games— Books and letters— Marriage— Funeral rites. 

A GOOD idea of a first-class Roman house may be got by visiting the 
Pompeiian Court in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. The principal 
apartments were on the ground-floor. Passing through the unroofed 
vestibule, often between rows of graceful statues, a visitor entered the 
house through a doorway ornamented with ivory, tortoise-shell, and gold. 
On the threshold, worked in mosaic marble, was the kind word, " Salve ;" 
while behind the door, where the porter sat, was a dog, or its picture, with 
the warning, " Cave canem!' Then came the atriujn, or great central re- 
ception-room, separated from its wings by lines of pillars. Here were 
placed the ancestral images ; and here, too, was the focus, a family fire- 
place dedicated to the Lares. In the centre of this, or perhaps of an 
inner hall, was a cistern, into which the rain plashed through an opening 
in the roof. Further in lay a large saloon called the peristyle, while 



66 GREAT EVENTS 

smaller rooms for eating and sleeping were placed according to fancy lOi 
convenience. The floor, though sometimes boarded, was generally ■; 
mosaic of colored marble, tiles, or glass ; the walls, whitewashed in the 
old simple days of the early Republic, were now carved and painted, 
or perhaps glittered with costly mirrors ; gilt and colored stucco- 
work adorned the ceilings ; while the window-frames were filled with 
talc or glass. . On the roofs were gardens, bright with leaf and blos- 
som. 

In houses like these might be found ivory bedsteads, with quilts of 
purple and gold ; tables of precious wood — cedar, citron, or cypress — sup- 
ported on marble pedestals ; side-boards of gold and silver, loaded with 
plate ; amber vases, beakers of Corinthian bronze, and glass vessels from 
Alexandria, whose tints rivalled the opal and the ruby. 

The household work was done by slaves of various classes. In earlier 
times a few sufficed ; but in the days of the Empire it was thought a disgrace 
not to have a slave for every separate kind of work. And so, besides those 
who managed the purse, the cellar, the bed-rooms, and the kitchen, there 
were slaves to carry the litter, or to attend as their masters walked abroad. 
Some, of higher pretensions, were physicians, secretaries, and readers. 
Then, for amusement, there were musicians, dancers, buffoons, and even 
idiots. But all may be ranked under two heads — bought slaves, and born 
slaves. There was a slave-market, in which the common sort were sold 
like cattle ; but the more beautiful or valuable were disposed of by private 
bargain in the taverns. Prices ranged from £^ to ^800. 

The most remarkable garment of the Romans was the toga, made of 
pure white wool, and in shape resembling a segment of a circle ; narrow 
at first, it was folded, so that one arm rested as in a sling ; but in later 
days it was draped in broad, flowing folds round the breast and left arm, 
leaving the right nearly bare. Though its use in the streets was in later 
times exchanged for a mantle of warm, colored cloth, called pallium, or 
lacerna, yet it continued to be the Roman full-dress ; and in the theatre, 
when the emperor was present, all were expected to wear it. The later 
emperors wore braccae, or loose trousers tied about the ankle — a fashion 
borrowed from the barbarians. These were commonly crimson ; but 
Alexander Severus wore white. The Romans always kept the head un- 
covered, except on a journey, or when they wished to escape notice. Then 
they wore a dark-colored hood, which was fastened to the lacerna. In 
the house soleae were strapped to the bare feet ; but abroad the calceus, 
nearly resembling our shoe, was commonly worn. On the gold-finger, the 
fourth of the left hand, every Roman of rank had a massive signet-ring. 
There were fops who loaded every finger with jewels ; and we are told of 
one poor f ;llow who was so far gone in foppery, as to have a set of lighter 



OF HISTORY. 67 

rings for summer wear, when his delicate frame could not bear the weight 
of his winter jewels. 

The dress of Roman ladies consisted of three parts — an inner tunic, 
the stola, and the palla. The stola, which was the distinctive dress of 
Roman matrons, was a tunic with short sleeves, girt round the waist, and 
ending in a deep flounce, which swept the instep. The palla, a gay-col- 
ored mantle, was worn out of doors. It was often sky-blue, sprinkled 
with golden stars. The brightest colors were chosen ; so that an assembly 
of Roman belles, in full dress, was a brilliant scene, sparkling with scarlet 
and yellow, purple and pale green. The hair, encircled with a garland 
of roses, was fastened with a gold pin. Pearls and gold adorned the neck 
and arms. A favorite bracelet was a golden serpent with ruby eyes, such 
as may be seen on many a white arm in our own drawing-rooms. 

To many, in the degenerate ages of Rome, the great ends of life were to 
eat the most delicious food, and to eat of it as much as possible. Gluttony 
had grown upon the people from their intercourse with Asia. Roman 
meals were ihr&t—jentaculum, praiidium, and coena. yentacuhim, taken 
soon after rising, consisted of bread, dried grapes or olives, cheese, and 
perhaps milk and eggs. At prandmm, the mid-day meal, they partook of 
fish, eggs, and dishes cold or warmed up from last night's supper. Then, 
too, some wine was drunk. But coena was the principal meal, taken 
about the ninth hour, and on the whole corresponding to our dinner. It 
began with eggs, fish, and light vegetables, such as radishes and lettuces, 
served up with tasty sauces, all being intended merely to whet the appe- 
tite for the more substantial dishes to follow. Then came the courses 
{fercula), of which, in all their wonderful variety, no just idea can be 
given here. Among fish, turbot, sturgeon, and red mullet, were greatly 
prized ; among birds, the peacock, pheasant, woodcock, thrush, and fig- 
pecker. The favorite flesh-meat was young pork ; but venison was also 
in great demand. The courses were followed by a dessert of pastry and 
fruit. 

While eating, the Romans reclined upon low couches, which were 
arranged in the form triclinium, making three sides of a square. The 
open space was left for the slaves to place or remove the dishes. The 
place of honor was on the middle bench. In later times round tables 
became common, and then semi-circular couches were used. There were 
no table-cloths ; but the guests wore over the breast a linen napkin 
(inappd), which they brought with them. Instead of knives and forks 
two spoons were used — one, cochlear, small and pointed at the end of the 
handle ; the other, ligula, larger, and of uncertain shape. The splendor 
of a Roman feast was greatly marred by the oil-lamps, the only light 
then used. The lamps themselves were exquisite in shape and material. 



68 GREAT EVENTS 

as were all the tablt utensils, but the dripping oil soaked the table, while 
the thick smoke blackened the walls and ceiling, and rested in flakes of 
soot upon the dresses of the guests. 

At feasts, instead of the toga, short dresses, of red or other bright 
colors, were worn. Before the drinking began, chaplets were handed 
round. For these, roses, myrtle, violets, ivy, and even parsley were used. 
Before they were put on, slaves anointed the hair with nard and other 
sweet unguents. Wine was almost the only drink used, Before being 
brought to table it was generally strained through a metal sieve or linen 
bag filled with snow, and was called black or white according to its 
color, just as we talk of red and white wines. The famous Falernian 
was of a bright amber tint. Besides pure wine they drank mulsum, a 
mixture of new wine with honey, and calda, answering to our negus, made 
of warm water, wine, and spice. 

The Romans spent much time in their splendid baths. The cold 
plunge in the Tiber, which had braced the iron muscles of their ancestors, 
gave place, under the Empire, to a most luxurious and elaborate system 
of tepid and vapor bathing, often repeated seven and eight times a day. 
At the baths the gossip of the day was exchanged, as was done in English 
cofiee-houses a hundred years ago, and as is now done in our clubs and 
news-rooms. 

Their many slaves enabled the Romans to travel luxuriously. The 
favorite conveyance was a wooden palanquin (lectica) with leathern cur- 
tains, within which the traveller lay soft on mattress and pillows. They 
had cabs and carriages — as many, if not so elegant, as ours ; and there 
was no want of hack vehicles and post-horses. Inns were used chiefly by 
the lower classes ; for, except in cases of necessity, respectable travellers 
lodged at the houses of private friends. 

The theatre, with its tragedies and comedies, the circus, and the amphi- 
theatre, supplied the Romans widi their chief public amusements. At the 
circus they betted on their favorite horses or charioteers ; at the amphi- 
theatre they revelled in the bloody combats of gladiators. Four chariots 
generally started together. The drivers, distinguished by dresses of difier- 
ent colors, stood in the cars, leaning back, with the reins passed round 
their bodies, and a sharp knife in the belt to cut the thong if anything 
went wrong. On they whirled amid clouds of dust, seven times round 
the course, shaving the goal amid the thunders of the excited crowd. A 
large sum of money was generally the prize. 

The most brutal of all Roman pastimes were the gladiatorial combats. 
At the trumpet's sound throngs of wretched men — captives, slaves, or con- 
victed criminals — closed in deadly strife. The trodden sand soon grew 
led; yet on they fought with parched lips and leaping hearts, for they 



OF HISTORY. 69 

knew that a brave fight might win for them their freedom. Ere long hacked 
and bleeding limbs began to fa-' and dim eyes turned to seek for mercy 
along the crowded seats. There were times when the dumb prayer was 
answered, and the down-turned thumbs of the spectators gave the signal 
for sparing life • but too often mercy wa? sought in vain, and the sword 
completed its work. Combats of gladiators with wild beasts often took 
place. Whole armies sometimes thronged the scene. When Trajan 
triumphed after his victories in Dacia, ten thousand gladiators were 
exhibited at once. Another great public sight was the triumph of a victor. 
And here, too, blood must stream, else the pageant lost its zest. When 
the glittering files reached the slope of Capitolinus, the conquered leaders 
were led aside and slain. 

Among many games of exercise, playing at ball was a favorite. Within 
doors, much time and money were squandered at dice. Other more inno- 
cent amusements were various board-games, depending chiefly on skill, 
and resembling a good deal our chess and backgammon. 

Roman books were rolls of papyrus-bark or parchment, written upon 
with a reed-pen, dipped in lampblack or sepia. The back of the sheet 
was often stained with saffron, and its edges were rubbed smooth and 
blackened, while the ends of the stick on which it was rolled were adorned 
with knobs of ivory or gilt wood. Letters were etched with a sharp iron 
instrument {stilus) upon thin wooden tablets, coated with wax. These 
were then tied up with linen thread, the knot being sealed with wax and 
stamped with a ring. 

The Romans had three forms of marriage, of which the highest was 
called cottfarreatio. The bride, dressed in a white robe with purple fringe, 
and covered with a bright yellow veil, was escorted by torch-light to hei 
future home. A cake {far) was carried before her, and she bore a distaff 
and spindle with wool. Arrived at the flower-wreathed portal, she was 
lifted over the threshold, lest — omen of evil — ^lier foot might stumble on it. 
Her husband then brought fire and water, which she touched ; and, seated 
on a sheepskin, she received the keys of the house. A marriage supper 
closed the ceremony. 

Great pomp marked the funeral rites of the nobler Romans. The bier 
was preceded by a long procession of trumpeters, female dirge-singers, and 
even buffoons, all clad in black. It was only under the later emperors 
that white became the fashion for female mourning. In the i^?r«/«, under 
the Rostra, the bier was set down, a funeral oration was delivered, and then 
the gloomy lines wound slowly on to the burial-place. When, as was com- 
mon in earlier times, the body was burned, the bones were carefully gath- 
ered and preserved in an urn. But in later days the custom of burying ir 
a coffin was more frequently followed. 



70 GREAT EVENTS 



GREAT NAMES OF THE SECOND PERIOD, 

LiVY, born 59 B.C. at Padua — died 17 A. D. — lived much at Rome — 8 
great historian — chief work, " History of Rome up to 9 B. c," ori- 
ginally published in 142 vols. — only 35 nov/ extant. 

Ovid, bom at Sulmo 43 B. c. — a poet, works licentious — ^his " Metamor- 
phoses " are well known — banished by Augustus 8 A. D. — died at Tomi, 
near the Euxine, bS a. d. 

Persius, born 34 A. yk in Etruria — chief works. " Six Satires and a Pro- 
logue " — died at about 30 years of age. 

Seneca, bom shortly before Christ at Cordova — a philosopher — tutor of 
Nero, by whose orders he bled himself to death — author of " Physical 
Questions," " Epistles," and, some say, ten Tragedies. 

LuCAN, born at Cordova 38 A. D. — only extant work, his poem of " Phar- 
salia " — like Seneca, sentenced as a conspirator against Nero to bleed 
himself to death, 65 A. D. 

Pliny (Elder), born 23 A. D. — a distinguished naturalist — once procurator 
of Spain — suffocated during an eruption of Vesuvius, 79 A. D. 

Pliny (Younger), born at Comum 62 or 63 — proconsul of Bithynia — a 
great friend of Tacitus — chief works, " Epistles " and " Panegyric on 
Trajan." 

QUINTILIAN, bom perhaps in North Spain — a teacher of rhetoric at 
Rome — chief work, " Institutes of Oratory." 

Tacitus, born in Nero's reign — a great historian — son-in-law of Agricola, 
whose life he wrote — author of " Annals," giving Roman history from 
death of Augustus to death of Nero ; and also a work on Germany. 

Suetonius, bom about Nero's reign — author of many historical works- 
only complete woi-k extant, " Lives of the Twelve Csesars." 

Juvenal, bom about 40 a. d. — a great satiric poet — his satires not pub- 
lished till his old age — little known of his life. 

Galen, born in 131 at Pergamum — a great anatomist and medical writer — 
studied at Alexandria, and practised at Rome — 137 of his works ex- 
tant. 

Tertullian, bom at Carthage in A. D. 160, died A. d. 220 — first of the 
Latin writers of the Church — chief work, " His Apology for Chris- 
tians," written about 198. 

Origen, born in Egypt 185 or 186 — at first head of the catechetical school 
at Alexandria — editor and commentator of the Scriptures — supposed 
to have died at Tyre, aged 69. 

Cyprian, Archbishop of Carthage in middle of third century — martyred 
under Valerian, 258 — chief work, " Unity of the Church." 



OF HISTOR Y. 



71 



Ambrose, bom about 340 in Gaul — Archbishop of Milan a great foe of 
Arianism — chief work, *' De Officiis " — died 397. 

EusEBius Pamphilus, bom in Palestine about 264 — Bishop jf Cassarea — 
probably tainted with Arianism — chief works, " Ecclesiastical and 
Universal History," and " Life of Constantine " — died 338. 

Athanasius, born at Alexandria in end of third century — Patriarch of 
Alexandria, 328 — a great foe of Arianism, for opposing which be was 
deposed and banished — wrongly called author of the Athanasian 
Creed. 

Gregory Nazianzen, born early in fourth century in Cappadocia — for 
some time assistant to his father, Bishop of Nazianzus — afterwards 
for a while Patriarch of Constantinople — noted as a writer of theology 
and religious poetry. 

Chrysostom, (Gold-mouth, from his eloquence) — bom at Antioch 354 — 
Patriarch of Constantinople 397 — his works contain valuable illustra 
tions of life in the fourth and fifth centuries. 

Jerome, born in 340 in Dalmatia — especially learned in Hebrew- 
founder of Monasticism — chief work, a translation of the Bible inlo 
the Latin version, called the Vulgate ; wrote also Commentaries and 
Lives of the Fathers — died 420. 

Augustine, bom in Numidia 354 — Bishop of Hippo — taught rhetoric for 
a while — the great foe of Pelagius — chief works, " On the Grace ol 
Christ," " Original Sin," and his own life, in the form of " Coiilei- 
sioQS " — died 430. 



THIRD PERIOD. 

raOM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE ACCESSION 0? 
CHARLEMAGNE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN. 

Central Point: THE ROMAN LAW SIMPLIFIED, 529 A.D. to 533 A.D. 

Theodoric the Ostrogoth — Clevis the Frank — Accession of Justinian — Conquest of Africa- 
Belisarius besieged in Rome — Conquers Italy— His disgrace — Again in Italy — His last 
clKys — Narses destroys the Ostrogothic kingdom — Legislation of Justinian — The riot Nika 
— Justinian's character— The Lombard invasion — Alboin, King of Italy. 

Odoacer held the throne of Italy until 493, when he perished at Rav- 
enna by the sword of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Under the wise rule of 
the victor, whose chief adviser was the learned Cassiodorus, Italy revived, 
A waste and ruined land was soon loaded with purple grapes and yellow 
corn. Fair buildings rose. Once more gold and iron M^ere dug from the 
earth. Romans and Ostrogoths lived in peace and plenty, although a 
broad line, jealously preserved by the policy of Theodoric, kept them 
apart. The fair-haired Goths, still wearing their furs and brogues, car- 
ried the sword ; while the Romans, wrapped in the flowing toga, held the 
pen and filled the schools. So passed three and thirty 5^ears, until Theo- 
doric died in 526, and then frightful scenes of blood were enacted over 
his fallen throne. 

Some time before Theodoric's descent upon Italy, a Frank, called 
Chlodwig or Clevis (the name was afterwards softened into Louis), crossed 
the Somme, and drove pell-mell before him Romans, Burgundians, and 
Visigoths, never resting until his dominion stretched from the delta of the 
Rhine to the Pyrenees. During his career of victory he was baptized a 
Christian at Rheims in 496. Soon afterwards he fixed his capital at Paris, 
where he died in 511. The old church is still pointed out, in which this 
founder of the French monarchy was buried. It is worth remembering 
that Theodoric married the sister of Clovis. 

During these events young Justinian was growing up in Constantinople. 



GREAT EVENTS OF HISTORY. 73 

An. uncle, Justin, a stalwart peasant of Dacia, enlisting in early life among 
the guards of Leo, had risen to be emperor of the East. By him Justinian 
was educated, adopted, and, in 527, crowned. 

Belisarius soon became the foremost name of the age. The first laurels 
of this great general were won in Persia ; he was then chosen 
to lead an expedition against the Vandals of Africa. Land- Sept. 
ing there, within the same month he led his troops into Car- 633 
ihage, which blazed with torches of welcome. Gelimer, the A.D. 
Vandal king, after a vain attempt to retrieve his fortunes, fled 
to the Numidian mountains, but was soon starved into a surrender, and 
carried to Constantinople, to grace the victor's triumph. Among the 
spoils were the vessels of the Jewish Temple, which, carried to Rome by 
Titus, had been brought to Carthage by the pirate Genseric, and were 
now placed in the Christian church at Jerusalem. 

But the greatest achievement of Belisarius was the conquest of Italy, by 
which, for a short time, the East and the West were re-united 
under one sovereign. The subdual of Sicily, the capture of 536 
Naples and of Rome, mark the steps of victory by which he A.D. 
drove the Goths northward before him. Mustering the whole 
strength of their nation at Ravenna, under their king Vitiges, they marched 
to besiege Belisarius in Rome. A.nd then the genius of this great com- 
mander shone with its brightest lustre. In the first assault the Goths 
were nearly successful ; but Belisarius, fighting dusty and blood-stained in 
the front of the battle, turned back the tide of war. After many days of 
busy preparation, another grand assault was made. Hastily the walls 
wei-e manned ; and, as the giant lines came on, Belisarius himself, shoot- 
ing the first arrow, pierced the foremost leader, A second shaft, from the 
same true hand, laid another low. And then a whole cloud, aimed only 
at the oxen which drew the towers and siege-train towards the wall, 
brought the attacking army to a complete stand-still. It was a decided 
check ; and, though the siege dragged on for more than a year, every 
effort of the Goths was met and foiled with equal skill. So hot was the 
defence at times, that matchless statues were often broken up, and hurled 
from the wall upon the Goths below. About the middle of the siege, the 
Pope Sylverius, convicted of having sent a letter to the Goths, promising 
to open one of the gates to them, was banished from the city. 
And at last the besiegers, worn out with useless toil, burnt 539 
their tents and fell back to Ravenna, where, before long, they A.D. 
yielded to the triumphant Illyrian, at whose feet all Italy then 
lay. Milan, a city second only to Rome, had been destroyed the year be- 
fore by a host of Franks, who rushed down from the Alps to aid the 
Goths, and enrich themselves with the plunder of the plain. 

4 



74 



GREA T E VENTS 



Through all these brilliant achievements Belisarius had been greatly 
v^exed and hampered by intriguing rivals, especially the ambitious Narses. 
A.nd how his star began to pale. In two campaigns (541-42), he drove back 
over the Euphrates the Persian king Nushirvan, who had ruined Antloch, 
and wa's planning a raid upon Jerusalem. A report having reached the 
camp that Justinian was dying, the general let fall some rash words, which 
implied that the Empress Theodora — once an actress of most wicked life — 
was unworthy to succeed to the throne. For this he was recalled, dis- 
graced, and heavily fined, his life being spared only for the sake of his 
profligate wife Antonina, who was then in high favor with the empress. 

Sent to Italy again in 544 to oppose Totilas, a brave and clever Goth, 
who was making manful efforts to restore the empire of Theodoric, 
Belisarius was forced to stand idly by with insufficient forces while the 
Goths took Rome, having reduced the citizens to feed on mice and nettles 
(546). He recovered the city in a month or two, and then held out 
against every attack ; but during the remainder of his stay in Italy his 
strength was frittered away in the south of the peninsula, where Totilas 
pressed him hard. At length, in 548, he got leave to return home. 

Then, having narrowly escaped murder, he lived in private until 559, 
when he was called into the field to meet an inroad of Bulgarians, who, 
coming originally from Mount Ural, had crossed the frozen Danube, and 
were now only twenty miles from Constantinople. The stout old soldier, 
having beaten back the savages, came home to be treated coldly, and dis- 
missed without thanks. Soon after, accused of plotting to murder the em- 
peror, he was stripped of all his wealth, and imprisoned in his own house. 
His freedom was restored, but the death-blow had been given ; he lived 
only eight months longer. We are all familiar with the bent figure of a 
blind old man, begging for alms in the streets, though he was once the 
great general, Belisarius, conqueror of Africa and Italy. Painters and 
poets have seized eagerly on the romantic story ; but it is doubted by most 
historians.* 

It was left for Narses, purse-bearer to Justinian, the rival and successor 

of Belisarius, to destroy the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. Lombards, 

Heruli, and Huns following his banner, he defeated and slew Totilas at 

Tadinae in 552, and then occupied Rome, which was taken and retaken 

Ave times during the reign of Justinian. But his task was not "finished 

until Teias, last of the Ostrogothic kings, fell at the foot of 

553 Vesuvius. Most of the surviving Ostrogoths were then allowed 

A.D. to leave Italy with part of their wealth. And thus, having held 



• Lord Mahon, in his Life of Belisarius, defends the story. It rests entirely upon 
the authoritj of a writer of the eleventh century. 



OF HISTORY. 75 

the peninsula for sixty years, they pass from our sight. Naiscs, having 
then repelled a swarm of Franks and Alemanni, who ravaged Italy from 
north to south, was made the first Exarch of Ravenna, and continued for 
many years to rule with prudence and vigor. 

It is now time we should turn to the greatest glory of Justinian's 
reign — his reduction of Roman law to a simple and condensed system. 
For centuries the laws had been multiplying. Every decree of every em- 
peror — even heedless words spoken by the veriest fool or blackest villain 
in that most chequered line from Adrian to Justinian — became a binding 
law. Nobody could know the law, for on any point there might be a 
dozen contradictory decisions. Justinian set himself, with the aid of 
Tribonian, and other learned men, to work this chaos into order. His sys- 
tem consists of four great parts : i. The Code, a condensation of all earlier 
systems, was first published in 529. 2. Not less valuable were the Insti- 
tutes, a volume treating of the elements of Roman law, intended for 
students, and published in 533. 3. In the same year appeared the Digest, 
or Pandects (the latter word means " comprising all "), which, in fifty 
volumes, gave the essence of the Roman jurisprudence. This great work 
was finished in three years ; and some idea of the cutting-down found 
needful may be gathered from the fact, that three millions of sentences 
were reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand. 4. The Novels em 
braced the new laws issued by Justinian himself. 

During all this reign the old rivalry between the Blue and Green fac- 
tions of the Circus convulsed the capital. It reached a crisis in 532, when 
a destructive riot, called Nika (Victory) from the watchword of the com- 
batants, raged for five days. Blues and Greens united against the em- 
peror, who was on the point of fleeing, when the firmness of his wife re- 
strained him. The Blues returned to their allegiance ; and the blood of 
thirty thousand of their wretched foes soaked the sand of the Hippodrome. 
The secret of silk-making, which had been jealously guarded by the 
Chinese, was now made known to Europe by two monks, who brought the 
eggs of the silkworm from the East, hidden in a hollow cane. Justinian 
adorned his capital with twenty-five churches, of which the chief was St. 
Sophia, gleaming with gems and many-colored marble. In 541 the 
Roman Consulship — once the world's proudest dignity, but long since 
dwindled into an empty title — ceased to exist ; it was not, however, till 
three centuries later, that the " grand old name " was abolished by law. 

Justinian died in 565, aged eighty-three. Leaving no heirs, he was suc- 
ceeded by his nephew, Justin II. He was active, temperate, good-natured ; 
but the slave of an imperious and vicious wife. In his religious views he 
was capricious and intolerant ; in early days a persecutor of heresy — in old 
age himself a heretic. 



76 GREAT hVENTS 

The last great wave now rolled from the North. The Longobaida, or 
Lombards, taking their name probably from their long spears {hardi), be- 
gan to move towards the Danube. The Avars, a wandering race of arch- 
ers, driven from their home on Mount Ural by the Turks of the Caspian, 
joined the tumultuous march. Together they fell upon the Gepidae of the 
Danube. The king of the ill-fated tribe was slain, and his skull made 
into a drinking-cup by Alboin, the Lombard chief, who then married the 

daughter of the dead man. Leaving his conquests to the Avars, 
568 Alboin crossed the Alps, overran the fruitful plain ever since 
A.D. called Lombardy, and was there raised on a shield as King of 

Italy. He was soon murdered at the instigation of Rosamund, 
his wife, whom, we are told, he forced, at a public banquet, to drink out of 
her father's skull. Cleph, the next king, in a reign of eighteen months, 
extended his dominions as far south as Beneventum. Then came a gap 
of ten years, during which the thirty-six Lombard Dukes, among whom 
the eonquered parts of the peninsula had been divided, ruled with re- 
morseless cruelty. But monarchy was restored in 586 in the person of 
Autharis ; and for about two hundred years the Lombard Kings and the 
Exarchs of Ravenna, who represented the Byzantine, or Eastern Empire, 
held Italy between them. 

EASTERN EMPERORS OP THE SIXTH CENTURY. 

A.D. 

Anastasius 

Justin 1 518 

Justinian I 527 

Justin II 565 

Tiberius II 578 

Maurice 582 



CHAPTER II. 

~^ THE GROWTH OF THE PAPAC\. 

Central Point : GREGORY'S LETTER TO THE PATRIARCH OP CONSTANTI- 
NOPLE, 595 A.D. 

The Martyr Popes— Christianity a Greek Worship— Appeal to Bishop of Rome — Three great 
fonndersofPapaoy— Innocent and Alaric— Pelagianism— Leo I. — Jerome, Ambrose, Angus- 
tine— Conversion of Barbarians— Gregory the Great— His letter to John— Origin of Pope's 
temporal Power. 

Our knowledge of the Papacy in its earliest days is very dim and uncer- 
tain. Peter, the fisherman of Galilee, who, as tradition relates, was cruci- 
fied with his head downwards about 66 A. D., is claimed by the advocates 



OF HISTORY. 



n 



of the Papal system, but without a shadow of historical proof, as first 
Bishop of Rome. No doubt for many a day the Bishops of Rome were 
humble dwellers in a mean suburb, scouted as Jews, and despised as the 
apostles of some wild Eastern heresy by the magnificent priesthood of 
Jupiter and Apollo ; and, when they did gain a place in the public eye, it 
was as noble witnesses for the truth, sealing their faith with their blood. 
Out of thirty Roman bishops of the first three centuries, nineteen 
suffered martyrdom. Thus, cradled in darkness and baptized in blood, 
the great power of the imperial see struggled through the years of its 
infancy. 

At first the history of the Roman Church is identical with the his- 
tory of Christian truth. But, unhappily, there came a time when streams 
of poison began to flow from the once pure fountain. 

Before the close of the first century. Christian churches were scattered 
over all the known world. These were at first essentially Greek in their 
language, their Scriptures, and their forms of worship. It was in Africa 
— where, about 200, flourished Tertullian, first of the great Fathers who 
wrote in Latin — that Latin Christianity may be said to have had its birth. 
But Rome, being ihe centre of the civilized world, the Christian communi- 
ties everywhere began naturally to look to the Roman Bishop as a leader 
in the Church. 

A great step in this direction was taken, when, at the Council of 
Sardica, in 343, the right of appeal to the Bishop of Rome was, though 
at first probably only as a temporary expedient, formally conceded. In 
the time of Damasus, the bishopric had become a prize worth 
contesting, and blood flowed freely during the election. 366 
Year after year consolidated and extended the power of this A. D. 
central see, although a powerful rival had sprung up on the 
Bosphorus. 

Innocent I., Leo I., and Gregory the Great, were the three great 
founders of the Papacy. 

While Honorius was disgracing the name of emperor, Innocent began 
his Pontificate.* It was soon clear from his letters to the bishops in the 
West, that he was bent on claiming for the see of Rome 
a complete supremacy in all matters of discipline Innocent I. 
and usage. In the midst of his eff'orts to secure this 402-4-17 
end. a terrible event occurred, which had the eff"ect of A. D. 

investing him with a grandeur unknown to his prede- 
cessors. Alaric and his Goths besieged Rome. Honorms was trembling 



* The name Pontiff, from the Pontifex Maximum, the chief officer of the Pagan 
Romai: hierarchy. 



78 GREA T E VENTS 

amid the swamps of Ravenna ; but Innocent was within the walls of the 
capital ; and, deserted by her emperor, Rome centred all hope in hei 
bishop. A ransom bought off the enemy for a while ; and, when, soon 
after, the great disaster of wreck and pillage fell upon the city. Innocent 
was absent in Ravenna, striving to stir the coward emperor to some show 
of manliness. He returned to evoke from the black ashes of Pagan Rome 
the temples of a Christian city. Thenceforward the pope was the greatest 
man in Rome. 

In the latter days of Innocent, the great heresy of Pelagius began to 
agitate the West. This man was a Briton, who passed through Rome, 
Africa, and Palestine, preaching that there was no original sin ; that men, 
having perfect free will, could keep all Divine commands, by the power 
of nature, unaided by grace. These doctrines were combated by Augus- 
tine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, one of the great Fathers of the Church, 
whose opinions soon became the standard of orthodoxy throughout the 
West. Innocent, leaning towards Augustine, declared Pelagius a heretic, 
but death prevented him from doing more. By Zozimus, the next pope, 
Pelagius was banished, and of his end nothing is known. 

Leo I., a Roman by birth, was unanimously raised to the popedom in 

440. Distinguished for his stern dealings with heretics, and his energetic 

efforts to extend the spiritual dominion of Rome, he yet, 

Leo 1. like Innocent I., owes his great place in history to the bold 

440-461 front he twice showed to the barbarians menacing Rome. 
A. D. The savage Attila was turned away by his majestic re- 
monstrance ; and although his intercession with Genseric 
the Vandal, three years later, had less avail, it yet broke the force of the 
blow that fell on the hapless city. 

While the Papacy was thus laying the deep foundations of its authority, 
a host of active intellects were busy moulding its doctrines and dis- 
cipline into shape. Chief among these were Jerome, Ambrose, and 
Augustine. Jerome, the secretary of Pope Damasus, and aftei^wards 
a monk of Bethlehem, gave the first great impulse to that monastic 
system which has been so powerful an agent in spreading the 
doctrines of Popery. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, vindicated 
the authority of the priesthood even over emperors aiid kings, by 
condemning Theodosius I. to a long and weary penance for his massa- 
cre of the Thessalonians. Augustine, already noticed, is justly called 
the Father of the Latin Theology. 

It must not be forgotten that the barbarians, who overthrew the Roman 
Empire, had already, with few exceptions, been converted to Christianity. 
The Goths were the first to receive the gospel ; other tribes followed in 
quick succession, for the Teutonic character had, even in its barbaric 



OF HISTORY. 



79 



phase, a groundwork of deep thoughtfulness, which secured a ready ac- 
ceptance for Christianity. And when tlie barbaric flood had swept away 
every vestige of Roman temporal power, the Papacy, cherished by 
that very destroying power, continued to grow, gathering every year new 
strength and life — a new Rome rising from the ashes of the old, far 
mightier than the vanished empire, for it claimed dominion over the 
spirits of men. In Gregory the Great, who became pope in 590, we behold 
the third great founder of the Papacy, and the fourth of the great 
Fathers of Latin Christianity. He it was, who, while yet a humble monk 
of St. Andrew, being struck with the beauty of some English boys in the 
Roman slave market, fomied the design of sending a mission to Britain ; 
and some years afterwards despatched Augustine to these 
shores. All the West felt his energy. Spain, Africa, and Gregory !• 
Britain, were brought within the pale of the Church, while 590-604 
Jews and heretics were treated with mild toleration. A A. D. 
notable fact of this Pontificate was Gregory's letter to John, 
Patriarch of Constantinople, who openly claimed the title of Univer.sal 
Bishop. Gregory branded it as a blasphemous name, once ap- 
plied, in honor of St. Peter, by the Council of Chalcedon to 595 
the Roman Bishop, but by all succeeding pontiffs rejected A.I), 
as injurious to the rest of the priesthood. 

War with the Lombards filled Gregory's hands with troubles ; but in no 
long time these fierce warriors felt a power, against which their swords 
were worthless, casting its spells over them. In the days of Gregory they 
were converted from being heathens, or at best, reckless Arians, to orthodox 
Christianity. He died in 604, leaving a name, as priest, ruler, and writer, 
second to none in the long roll of popes. 

One hundred and fifty years later, when Pepin the Short made Pope 
Stephen II. a present of the Exarchate and Pentapolis in No;th Italf 
the temporal power of the popes began. 



8o GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER HI. 

MAHOMET AND HIS CREED. 

Central Point : THE HEGIRA, 622 A. D. 

Arabia and the Arabs— Mahomet's early life— Proclaims his creed— The Hegira— Battles of 
Beder and Ohod— Capture of Chaibar— Battle of Muta— Occupation of Mecca— War in 
Syria— Death of Mahomet— The Koran and Sonna— Moslem belief— Religious duties- 
Caliphate of Abu Beker — Caliphate of Omar — Moslem victories at sea — Election of AU— 
Siege of Constantinople — Conquests of Northern Africa. 

The Arabs of the sixth century were not unlike what they are now. The 
sandy table-land, which fills the centre of the peninsula, was dotted with 
the encampments of roving Bedouins, whose black tents nestled under 
the shade of acacia and date tree, only so long as grass grew green and 
fresh round the well of the oasis. The fringes of low coast land were 
filled with busy hives of traders and husbandmen. Mingled with 
these were men of many races, Persians, Jews, and Greeks, scraps of 
whose various creeds had come to be woven up with the native worship of 
sun and stars. The great temple was the Caaba at Mecca, in whose wall 
was fixed a black stone, said by tradition to have been a petrified angel, 
once pure white, but soon blackened by the kisses of sinners. Strongly 
marked in the national character was a vein of wild poetry, and their 
wandering habits predisposed them for plunder and war. 

Among this people a child was born in 571, in the city of Mecca. His 
father, Abdallah, of the great tribe Koreish, was one of the hereditarj' 
keepers of the Caaba. His mother, Amina, was of the same noble race. 
Left an orphan at six, the little Mahomet passed into the care of a mer- 
chant uncle, Abu Taleb, whose camel-driver and salesman he grew up to 
be. So it happened that in early life he took many journeys with the 
caravans for Syria and Yemen, and filled his mind with the wild tradi- 
tions of the desert. At twenty-five he undertook to manage the business 
of a rich widow, Cadijah, whose forty years did not prevent her from 
looking with fond eyes upon her clever, handsome steward. They were 
married and lived an uneventful life, until, in his fortieth year, Mahomet 
proclaimed himself a prophet. For some years before this, he was in the 
habit of retiring often to a mountain cave for secret thought and study. 
Then, to his wife, his cousin Ali, his servant Zied, and his 
611 friend, Abu Beker, he told his strange stoiy. Gabriel had 
A. D. come from God, had revealed to him wonderful truths, aijd 
had commissioned him to preach a new religion, of which the 
sum was to be, " There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet." 



OF HISTORY. 81 

This faith he called Islam, an infinitive denoting homage or surrender, 
and expressing the believer's relation towards God. The word Moslem 
(corrupted into Mussulmaun), is from the same root — salm, to pay 
homage. 

In three years he gained only forty followers. Then, bent upon a wider 
sphere, he invited his leading kinsmen to his house, and there proclaimed 
his mission, demanding to know which of them would be his vizier. None 
but Ali, a boy of fourteen, the son of Abu Taleb, answered his call; the 
rest laughed at the madman and his silly cousin.. All the weight of the 
tribe Koreish was opposed to him, until ridicule and persecution drove 
him from the city. Taking refuge in his old uncle's castle, he continued 
to preach Islam in the face of their anger, and even returned to Mecca for 
a while. But the death of his protector, Abu Taleb, left him naked to 
the rage of his enemies ; and when the leaders of Koreish laid a plot to 
murder him, each swearing to plunge a sword in his body, he 
fled at midnight, leaving Ali on his bed, wrapped in a green July 16, 
robe to deceive the murderers. After hiding in a cave for 622 
three days, with Abu Beker, he reached Medina, where many A. D. 
of his converts lived. This was the great Mahometan era, 
called Hegira, or the Flight, from which Moslems have since reckoned 
the years. In Medina, the prophet built his first mosque, beneath whose 
palm-wood roof his own body was to be laid in the grave, ten years later. 
Thus the preaching of Islam began to radiate from a new centre. 

But a great change came. The dreamer and meek preacher for 
thirteen years, turned into a red-handed soldier. Islam became a reli- 
gion of the sword. " The sword," cried Mahomet, " is the key of heaven 
and hell ; " and ever since — never more loudly and ruthlessly than in our 
own day at Lucknow and Cawnpore — that fierce gigantic lie has been 
pealing its war-note in the Moslem heart. 

His earliest attacks were upon the caravans of his ancient enemies, the 
Koreish. 'n the Valley of Beder he fell with 314 men upon nearly 1,000 
Meccans, who had hurried out to protect a rich camel-train 
from Syria. The caravan escaped, but its defenders were driven 624 
in headlong rout int j Mecca. Among the spoils was a sword A. D. 
of fine temper, which was in the prophet's hand in all his 
future battles. Next year he was defeated and wounded in the face at 
Mount Ohod, a few miles north of Medina. This was a heavy blow, but 
the elastic spirit of the warlike apostle rose bravely beneath it, although 
he had now to struggle, not alone against the Koreish, but against the Jews, 
who mustered strong in northern Arabia. From Medina, now fortified 
with a deep moat, he beat back a great host, headed by Abu Sofian, prince 
of the Koreish- So greatly was his name now feared, that, when he ap 

4* 



82 GREA T E VENTS 

proached Mecca in the holy month, with 1,400 warlike pilgrims, an em- 
bassy from the Koreish offered peace. A treaty for ten years was made, 
of which one condition was that he and his followers should have leave to 
visit Mecca, on pilgrimage, for three days at a time. 

He then turned his sword upon Chaibar, the Jewish capital of northern 
Arabia, where, we are told, the bearded Ali, glittering with scarlet and 
steel in the front of the battle, having lost his buckler, tore a heavy gate 
from its hinges, and bore it as a shield all day. The fortress was taken ; 
but it was near being a dearly-bought conquest to the prophet. When he 
called for food, a shoulder of lamb, cooked by a Jewish girl, was set 
before him. The first mouthful told him something was wrong ; sharp 
pain seized him ; the meat was poisoned. One of his followers, who had 
eaten some, died in agony. Mahomet recovered for the time, but his 
frame received a fatal shock. 

The battle of Honein laid all Arabia at his feet. Then, king in all but 
name, he turned his eyes beyond Arabian frontiers. He sent embassies to 
Heraclius of Constantinople, and Chosr-.es of Persia, demanding submis- 
sion to his faith. Chosroes tore up the letter ; Heraclius received the 
message more courteously, but with equal disregard. An envoy of the 
prophet having been slain in Syria, a Moslem army under Zeid marched 
from Medina to avenge the murder. At Muta, some distance east of the 
Dead Sea, the troops of the Eastern Empire were met in battle for the 
first time by the soldiers of Islam, and thoroughly beaten. Zeid, however, 
and two other Moslem leaders, were slain. 

The great achievement of Mahomet's later life, was the occupation of 
Mecca in 629. At the head of 10,000 men he began a hurried, silent 
march. No trumpet was blown, no watchfire lighted, till they 
629 came close to the city. Abu Sofian, made prisoner outside the 
A.D walls, and converted by a naked sabre which was swung ovei 
his head, being allowed to return, told the Meccans how use- 
less it would be to resist the warrior prophet. And so, unopposed, clad 
in a pilgrim's garb, but preceded by a forest of swords and lances, flashing 
in the sunrise, the conqueror entered his native city. Three hundred and 
sixty idols of the Caaba were broken to pieces. And from every Meccan 
throat burst the watchword of Islam, " Allah Achbar ; " " God is great, 
and Mahomet is his prophet." 

The last military efforts of Mahomet were directed against Syria. His 
lieutenant, Khaled, spread his dominion from the Euphrates to Ailah 
(Akaba), at the head of the eastern prong of the Red Sea, the capture of 
which opened the path of the Moslems into Africa. The prophet him- 
self was half-way to Damascus, when he turned at the oasis of Tabuk, and 
came back to Medina to die. 



OF HISTORY. 83 

At sixty -one, older than his years, racked by ineradicable poison, and 
spirit-broken by the death of his only son, the infant Ibrahim, 
he fell a victim to a violent fever. Though the apostle of a June 7, 
great falsehood, we cannot deny his excellent genius, and the 632 
molding power of his strong and pliant will. A.D. 

The creed of Mahomet is embodied in the Koran, a book 
compiled by Abu Beker, two years after the prophet's death. It consists 
of pretended revelations from Gabriel, uttered from time to time by 
Mahomet, and carefully written on palm leaves and mutton bones by his 
devoted followers. Another book, called Sonna, composed of his scattered 
sayings, is of less authority. 

Some of the leading articles of belief are : i. There is but one God, 
2. There are angels of various ranks ; among them a fallen spirit, Eblis, 
driven from Paradise for refusing to worship Adam ; also inferior spirits, 
liable to death, called Genii and Peris. 3. There are six great 
prophets — Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet. 4. There 
is a hell, called Jehennam, and a Paradise of wondrous beauty, full 
of sensual delights. 5. Men have no free-will ; but all things are 
ruled by an unchanging Fate — a doctrine tending at first to kindle 
reckless fury in battle, but in the hour of peace a source of corroding 
indolence. 

Devout Moslems practise four great religious duties : I. Washing of 
curious nicety, followed by prayers five times a day, with the face 
towards Mecca. 2. The giving of one-tenth in charity. 3. Fasting 
from rise to set of sun during the thirty days of the month Rham- 
adan. Pork and wine are specially forbidden at all times. 4. A pil- 
grimage to Mecca at least once in life, which, however, may be performed 
by proxy. 

When Mahomet died, four candidates claimed to succeed him. These 
were Abu Beker, the father of his best-loved wife ; Omar, father of a 
second wife ; Othman, the husband of two of his daughters ; and Ali, his 
own cousin, married to Fatima, his only living child. Abu Beker, being 
appointed caliph (that is, successor), signalized his reign by the establish- 
ment of a Moslem kingdom on the west bank of the Euphrates. The 
fieiy Khaled, hero of this conquest, then laid siege to Damascus, which 
fell in 634, on the very day of Abu Beker's death. 

Omar, to whom the caliphate was left, pressed on the Syrian war. When 
Jerusalem surrendered in 637, the caliph — a foe to all finery and luxury — 
rode to take possession of the city, dressed in ragged hair-cloth, and seated 
on a rusty-brown camel, round whose neck were slung two little bags of 
rice and dates. We are reminded of this conquest by the Mosque of 
Omar, which rises where the great Jewish Temple once stood. By the 



84 GREAT EVENTS 

fall of Aleppo and Antioch all Syria was speedily subdued. Amru then 
fought his way through Egypt, crowning his victories with the 
640 conquest of Alexandria. The victorious Moslems are charged 
A.D. with having burnt the magnificent library of this great city ; but 
recent writers say that it must have been destroyed long before 
Mahomet's day. Meanwhile, another lieutenant had been warring success- 
fully with Yezdejerd, the Persian king. For three days a battle raged at 
Kadesia, until the slaughter of thirty thousand, and the loss of their sacred 
banner, which was a blacksmith's leather apron, put the Persians to flight. 
The capture of the capital, Madayn, and the victory of Nehavend, drove 
the royal Persian from his throne. To guard these conquests Omar 
founded Bassora and Cufa on the Euphrates. The former, near the Per- 
sian Gulf, became a great centre of commerce ; the latter — whence comes 
the word Cufic, applied to the oldest shapes of the Arabic alphabet — was 
for a time the capital of the caliphs. This greatest of the immediate suc- 
cessors of Mahomet, the conqueror of Syria, Egypt, and Persia, was 
stabbed in the mosque at Medina by a Persian fire-worshipper, and died 
a few days later (644). 

Under Othman, his successor (644-655), the most notable event was 
the appearance of the Moslems as victors by sea. A fleet, built by the 
Emir of Syria, swept the Levant, conquering Cyprus and Rhodes, and 
destroying at the latter island the great brazen statue famed as the Colos- 
sus. Othman has been called the " Gatherer of the Koran," from his suc- 
cess in restoring the purity of the original version. The feeble old man 
of eighty, badly able to cope with the restless spirits around him, was 
murdered by a mob in his own house at Medina. 

Ali, in whose veins ran Mahomet's blood, was then elected caliph ; but 
not without discontent and dissension, of which the very greatness of the 
Moslem dominion was the source. The election was a scene of clamor. 
Men were there from Euphrates, from Jordan, and fi-om Nile. Moawyah, 
the victorious Syrian Emir already noticed, raised the banner of revolt ; 
and, when Ali was assassinated at Cufa, in 661, he became the first caliph 
of the great Ommiyad line. 

It was under Moawyah that the Arabs girded themselves for their first 
dash at Constantinople. Yezid, the caliph's son, led the attack. For 
seven years (6'^ 8-675) the siege lasted ; but every assault was repelled by 
torrents of the terrible Greek fire — a mixture which seems to have' been 
made chiefly of naphtha. Scorched and blinded by the deadly, unquench- 
able flame, the Moslems recoiled, leaving the Bosphorus strewn with the 
charred fragments of their fleet. A second siege, forty-one years later, had 
the same result. 

But it was not so on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Dis- 



OF HISTORY. 85 

union at the centre of the Moslem power had at first hampered their move- 
ments. But soon Akbah penetrated all Barbary to the Atlantic, and 
founded in 674, near modern Tunis, the city of Kairouan, which grew to 
be the great mart of northern Africa in the Middle Ages. All efforts of 
the Berbers or Moors to stem the flood were useless. Cyrene and Tripoli 
fell ; Carthage was destroyed in 698 ; and, thirteen years later, a host of 
turbaned Arabs stood, with red scimitars unsheathed, gazing fiercely across 
the narrow strait towards that great rock of southern Spain, which still 
bears their leader's name. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MEROVINGIANS AND THEIR MAYORS. 
Central Point : BATTLE OP TOURS, 732, A.D. 

Eariy MeTOvingians — Fourfold division— Dagobert I. — Mayors of the Palace— Pepin of Eerbta] 
— Charles Mattel— Battle of Tours — Martel Duke of the French — Pepin le Bref— Crowned 
king — Gift of land to the pope. 

Beginning with Pharamond in 418, the list of Merovingian kings of 
the Franks contains thirty-four names. Third of these was Meroveg or 
Meer-wig (sea-warrior), from whom the race derived their name. And the 
fifth was Clovis, who has been already named as the true founder of the 
French monarchy. 

When Clovis died in 511, his kingdom was cut into fragments, and for 
more than a century the curse of a divided power vexed the land. There 
were four great divisions. Neustria lay north of the Loire ; eastward 
along and beyond the Rhine was Austrasia ; Aquitaine stretched between 
the Loire and the Pyrenees ; while the basin of the Saone and Rhone 
formed the kingdom of Burgundy. Murder often left vacant thrones ; and 
then one sceptre ruled all France. Under Dagobert I. {628-638), the 
ablest of the Merovingian kings, there was a short-lived union of the 
kingdoms ; but with his sons came new and worse divisions. 

The kings sank into the rois faineants, or sluggard kings, of French 
history, while the real power passed into the hands of their Mayor of the 
Palace, a high official, chosen by the nobles to be the guide and controller 
of the sovereign, and who, having command of the army and the military 
chest, in reality wielded the whole power of the state. Of these mayors, 
the most noted were Pepin of Heristal, his son Charles Martel (the Ham- 
mer), and his grandson Pepit le Bref (the Short). The third of these 
iron-handed mayors sat on the throne as the first king of the Carlovir gian 
line. 

Pepin of Heristal, Duke of Austrasia, held the office of mayor under 



86 GREAT EVENTS 

Thierry or Theodoric III., one of the faineants. By the victory of Testri 
he gained supremacy over Neustria ; and then, placing Neustria and Bur- 
gundy under his sons, he made the mayoralty hereditary. He ruled from 
687 to 714, holding Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle as centres of his power. 

Charles, the son of Pepin, succeeded him as Duke of Austrasia in 715^ 
as mayor in 719. Chilperic and Thierry sat in their country-houses, 
among their barns and dovecots, combing the long hair which they cherished 
as the undoubted sign of their kingship ; or drove about, with blank faces 
and lack-lustre eyes, in a clumsy wagon drawn by oxen, while Mayor 
Charles fought the battles and made the treaties and the laws of the 
Franks. 

One of his grand designs was to reduce the German tribes to obedi- 
3nce ; and for this purpose he formed the restless Franks into a sort of 
militia. But from this work he was turned to do a greater deed— to break 
the sword of Islam on the plain of Tours, and thus win his best title to the 
tremendous name he bears in history. 

The Arabs, who had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711, overthrew 
the kingdom of the Visigoths at Xeres. The dark flood, spreading over 
almost all Spain, poured through the passes of the Pyrenees upon south- 
ern France. Eudo, Duke of Aquitaine, was defeated, and a swarm of 
turbans mustered thick on the banks of the Loire. But on a grassy plain 
between Poictiers and Tours a terrible blow was struck, which 
732 saved western Europe from a bloody conversion to the Moslem 
A.D. creed, as the Greek fire had twice already saved Constantinople 
and the East. Charles Martel and his Franks stre.wed the field 
with three hundred thousand Moslem slain : and soon drove the shat- 
tered remnant of the host back to Spain. 

Then, turning to the work he had left off for a while, the mayor rapidly 
brought the Bavarians, Saxons, and Frisians again under Frankish sway. 
He was held in no great esteem by the churchmen of his realm ; for, at a 
pinch for money, he made no scruple about pillaging a church or monas- 
tery. The pope, Gregory III., sending him the keys of St. Peter's tomb, 
with the titles of Consul and Patricius, begged his aid against the Lom- 
bards. But there was too much for the Hammer to do in France, and the 
aid was not given. 

When Thierry died in 737, the throne remained vacant for four years, 
Charles Martel ruling under a new title — Duke of the French — until his 
death in 741. His sons, Carloman and Pepin, divided the mayoralty be- 
tween them ; but Carloman, soon retiring to an Italian monastery, left 
Pepin alone in the government. 

Pepin le Bref (the little King Pippin of our nursery tale) aimed more at 
a moral influence over his subjects than his iron-handed father had ever 



OF HISTORY. 87 

done. In securing this, his best helper was a Saxon monk, Winifred — 
otherwise known as Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence. 

Long since the sluggard Merovingians had become mei'e names in the 
state, and the time was now come when the sham was to be done away. 
The popes, repeating the urgent request for aid against the Lombards, 
which they had made in vain to Charles Martel, found Pepin more willing 
to befriend them. But for this a price must be paid. Pepin puts a ques- 
tion to Pope Zachary, " Who ought to be king ; the man with the power, 
or the man with only the name ? " Upon the question and its answer 
hinges the fate of the Merovingian dynasty. Only one answer 
could be given. Mayor Pepin turns into the first of the Car- 752 
lovingian kings of France ; and poor Childeric III., shorn of A.D. 
all his long, royal hair, retires to live and die in a convent. 
Pepin was crowned twice with the most solemn sanction of the Church ; 
first by Boniface, then by the hands of Pope Stephen himself, who came all 
the way from Rome to anoint the new monarch at St. Denis. 

For this service Pepin paid a royal fee. Two expeditions of the Franks 
into Italy left him master of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis, which he 
handed over to the pope — thus laying the foundation of the temporal sov- 
ereignty attached to the Papacy. This gift of territory comprised the lands 
between Ancona and the Po, stretching inland to the Apennines. 

Besides his Italian conquests, Pepin subdued the Saxons, took Aquitaine, 
drove the Arabs finally beyond the Pyrenees, and reduced the Bavarians 
to vassalage. He died in 768, leaving the southern part of his kingdom 
to Carloman, the northern to Charles — well known as Charlemagne, or 
Charles the Great. 



CHAPTER V. 

BARBAROUS RACES OF INFANT EUROPE. 

Four great migrations— Their effects — The Goths— The Franks— Bnrgundians and Vandals — 
Modern Goths and Vandals— Track of the Lombards — The Saxons — Contrast between Celts 
and Teutons — Origin of the Dntch — The Sclavonians — Early wealth of Poland— Fonndation 
of Hnngary. 

Europe was gradually peopled from Asia. Four great tides of migra- 
tion may be noted. First came the wave which peopled Greece and Italy ; 
then Celts and Cimbri, who occupied Spain, France, and Britain ; in the 
third place, the Germans, who filled Central Europe ; and lastly, Sarma- 
tian or Sclavonic tribes, who peopled the northeast, and upon whom 
pressed the Huns from Mount Ural, and Tartars from beyond the Caspian, 

The continuous flowing of these barbaric tribes west and south, undei 



88 GREAT EVENTS 

the ceaseless pressure of new immigrants from the east — their mingling 
and blending with one another, and with the old populations of f.he lands 
into which they poured — formed the power by which the fragments of the 
fallen Roman Empire were wrought into the variegated mosaic of medi- 
aeval and modern Europe. A glance at the map of our Continent, as it 
appears at the close of each century, will show the pattern of the mosaic 
changing continually, like the stars of colored glass in a kaleidoscope. 

The chief Germanic tribes were the Goths, the Franks, the Vandals, the 
Lombards, the Saxons, and the Scandinavians. 

The earliest home of the Goths was Scandinavia, where we can still 
mark their dwelling-places by such words as — Godoland, Godesconzia 
(Castle of the Goths), and, plainer still, Gothland. But the roving spirit 
natural to barbarism would not let these blue-eyed, golden-haired giants, 
hai'dened by the breezes of the North, rest content with their native 
swamps and forests. They began to push southward about 200 A.D., and 
we soon find them in central Europe in three great divisions — Visigoths 
(West Goths), Ostrogoths (East Goths), and Gepidae (Laggards). They 
were the most civilized of the German tribes ; and are further remarkable 
for having adopted Christianity, though in the corrupt Arian form, as their 
national religion, not only earlier than their brother savages, but even 
earlier than the Greeks and Romans. In little more than two centuries 
after their first start from Sweden, Alaric was victor within the walls of 
Rome. The Visigoths, after this achievement, founded a kingdom in 
Spain, which survived till the invasion of Saracens in 71 1. The Gepidae, 
who had dwelt at first round the springs of the Vistula, and had slowly 
moved down upon the Danube, fell before the advancing Lombards. 

The extinction of the Ostrogoths, who had settled in Italy after the fall 
of the Roman Empire, has been already noticed. In spite of their rude 
dresses of skin, and their clattering brogues, over which fell in clumsy 
folds their wide trousers, strapped round their ankle with a leather thong, 
we recognize in the Goths a race of men capable of high polish, and fitted 
for great deeds. They were honest and free-hearted ; and among them 
the Romans saw what they looked for in vain among themselves — modest 
and virtuous wives, each the centre and light of a hopie, where parents 
and children lived united in sweet domestic love. Let us thank God that 
many lands of modern Europe have inherited the good old Gothic home, 
hallowed by Christian faith, and refined and brightened by the thousand 
appliances of modern civilization ; and nowhere are its gentle safeguards 
more dearly prized and cherished than within our own island-shores. 

Early in the sixth century we find France parcelled out among three 
nations — Franks in the north and centre, Visigoths in the southwest, and 
Burgundians n the southeast. Underlying theje ruling races was a grnat 



OF HISTORY. 89 

mass of Celts or Gauls, and some Roman settlers, reduced to a state of 
vassalage. Of the Franks {frak, rude in fight, or undaunted)* there were 
two great tribes — Salian Franks, at first occupying modern Belgium, and 
Ripuarian Franks, dwelling along the lower Rhine. The former word 
still survives in the name of a law — once, perhaps, rational, but now ab- 
surd — which in some states (France, for example) prevents a woman from 
filling the throne. Clovis, the leader of the Salian Franks, was at first 
merely a captain of leudes, or free warriors, with no title to command ex- 
cept what his personal qualities gave him. He roved from city to city, 
until the influence of the clergy, and the gift of a gold crown and purple 
robes from Constantinople, gave him some show of royalty, and then he 
fixed his court at Paris. The assembly of the soldiers, called malhi7n, met 
in spring on the Champs de Mars. The towns were still under the old 
Roman law, which was administered and executed in each district by a 
Gi'af. The long-haired successors of Clovis lounged life away on their 
farms, far from the toils of government — almost their only share in public 
life being the yearly expedition to the mallum, when the old state cart 
was furbished up, and the king and queen, sitting in state behind the 
goaded oxen, jolted away with clumsy pomp towards the Field of Mars. 
It must be remembered, that although their country bears a name dei'ived 
from the Franks, the great mass of the modern French are of Celtic 
race. 

Pressed by the Gothic invasions, a mingled host of Vandals, Alans, 
Burgundians, and Sueves left the uplands between the springs of the 
Rhine and the Danube early in the fiftli century. The Burgundians, set- 
tling in eastern France, were soon subdued beneath the sword of Clovis. 
There, as peasants and craftsmen, they long preserved traces of their orig- 
inal barbarism, retaining among other strange customs the practice of 
buying and selling wives ; and, although they were reputed to be the most 
humana of all the barbarous races within the Roman frontier, we catch a 
glimpse of domestic life among them, not the pleasantest, in the right they 
claimed of dismissing a M'ife who was suspected of poisoning or witchcraft. 
These unwifely accomplishments seem to have been fashionable among 
the ladies of old Burgundy. 

The Vandals and Sueves pushed on to Spain, and founded a kingdom 
in the northwest corner of the peninsula. Here the Sueves held out until 
they were overthrown by the Visigoths. The fierce, restless Vandals, 
leaving their name behind them in the word Andalusia (once Vandalos), 
crossed to Africa in 428, swept along the north coasts to Tripoli, soon 



* Other authorities derive the name Frank from an ancient German word of nearly 
similar sound, signifying a battle-axe, the distinctive weapon of the race. 



90 GREAT EVENTS 

launched their pirate skiffs on the Mediterranean, grew lich by plunder, 
sank amid their bowers of orange and myrtle into the voluptuous habits 
of a southern climate, and finally perished beneath the sword of Beli' 
sarius. 

From Roman ideas of their barbaric foes, we have inherited two words 
of bitter contempt. The clown in dress and manners is a Goth ; the 
animal whose soul is dead to the love of the beautiful in art, and who 
would rejoice in the wanton destniction of glorious paintings and sculp- 
tures, is to us a Vandal. 

The track of the Lombards has been already marked out. Their 
original home was near the Skaw in Jutland. Thence they removed to 
the flat shores of Brandenburg ; but a flood-tide, washing over their fields, 
drove them to the higher banks of the Elbe. Then, passing southeast 
towards the Danube, they made it a starting-point for their march upon 
Italy, where the name Lombardy still points out the scene of their greatest 
triumphs. 

The Saxons (knife-men from Sachs), at first occupying Holstein, soon 
spread over the basin of the W^ser. Two kindred tribes — ^Angles and 
Jutes — filled the peninsula of Denmark. All were of the Teutonic type, 
blue-eyed, red or yellow-haired, pink-cheeked. The invasion of Britain 
by these three tribes is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of 
the barbaric migrations. There they found a population of Celts, who, 
retreating to the mountains, kept them stoutly at bay with claymore, dirk, 
and axe. Akin to the British Celts were the Irish people, who, living 
under Brehon law, upon game, fish, and what poor cattle they could rear, 
were, even in that gray dawn of Western history, famous as poets and 
harpers. Patrick, a Scotchman, began to preach the gospel in Ireland 
about 432 ; and, as if to repay the blessing, an Irishman, Columba, passed 
into Scotland in 563 on the same sacred mission. 

In dress, government, occupation, and religion, the Teuton and the 
Celt presented a strong contrast to each other. The Teuton garb was a 
loose, rude tunic, pinned round the neck with a thorn. In youth he wore 
an iron collar, which was flung aside when he had achieved the distinction 
of killing a man. Then, too, the young men of some of the fiercest 
tribes — the Batavians of the Lower Rhine, for example — cut their hair 
and shaved their heads for the first time. The Gaul or Celt, on the other 
hand, loved bright and many-colored clothes, and huiig gold chains on his 
brawny arms or round his huge neck. This characteristic of the race may 
still be noted in the colored tartans of the Highlander and the tasteful 
fashions of French dress. The Teutonic government was democratic — 
the chief power resting with the great assembly of the people, which was 
convoked at the time of full moon ; the government of the Celts was 



OF HISTORY. 91 

essentially aristocratic — clanship being its leading feature. War was the 
trade of the Teutons, tillage and pasturing the favorite employments of 
the Celt. And, while the Celts clung long to Druidism, the Teutons, 
acknowledging only one supreme God, were easily prepared to receive 
Christianity. 

Holland (HoUowland), whose flat meadows have been formed by 
gradual deposits of Rhine mud, was at this early time a vast swamp, 
skirted here and there along the coast by tangled forests. On mounds 
rising from the morass dwelt a race of fish-eaters, who clung to their poor 
hovels until a flood swept all away. The emptied Rhine-island was then 
seized by part of the Chatti, a fierce German tribe, who, making the most 
of their new home, called it Betauw (Good-meadow), afterwards altered into 
Batavia. From this mixture of Celt and German sprang the modem 
Dutch. 

Of the Scandinavians, or Norsemen, an account will be given in a future 
chapter. 

The original inhabitants of the bleak shores of northern Europe were 
Finns, of the Mongol stock — a gentle, black-haired people, whose best 
representatives now are the Laplanders. These were soon subdued by a race 
at first known to the Romans as Sauromatse, or Sarmatians (lizard or 
green-eyed), but who soon took from their own language the name Scla- 
vonian (manly or brave). Their cities were mere wagon-camps. Their 
warriors, who led into battle a spare horse or two, wore a cuirass of 
coarse linen, plated over with thin slices of horse-hoof. Poisoned fish-bones 
formed the points of their arrows and lances. Their religion was a kind 
of Druidism ; and, among other revolting customs common to many of 
the northern tribes, they were wont, in rejoicing after a victory, to drink 
blood out of their enemies' skulls. Our word " slave " (borrowed from 
the name, Sclavi), is sadly suggestive of the woes they suffered in the 
wars of the Middle Ages, and of the degrading serfdom in which millions 
of their descendants are still held. 

Poland was early a flourishing country. It was peopled by the Liaechs, 
a tribe of the western Sclavonians. The farmers went to battle on foot; 
bearing shield and lance ; the landlords on horseback, glittering in 
splendid armor. The traffic between the Black and Baltic Seas, passing 
along the Vistula, added much to the wealth of the Poles. 

Wild hordes from Mount Ural, passing the Carpathian gorges in quick 
succession, swept down on the Danube. All pressed upon one point — 
modern Hungary, with its grain-growing vales and gem-producing hills. 
Goths were displaced by Huns. Then, from the same far-off" snowy 
slopes, came Avars, Bulgarians, and lastly, Magyars, who, in 855, seized 
the upland between the mountains and th.e Theiss. Scarcely less 



9 2 GREA T E VENTS 

savage than the Huns were these later invaders. They ate horse-flesh 
(though now-a-days that is no sign of barbarism). They shot arrows 
vi'ith teri'ible force and aim, and flashed their irresistible lances, tipped 
with bright-colored pennons, in the faces of their startled foes. Behind 
the lines of cavaliy, as they marched, heavy carts jolted, filled with, their 
wives and little ones. These strangers, once rooted in the basin of the 
Danube, began to thrive with wonderful rapidity ; arts, agriculture, com- 
merce, flourished all alike. About looo A.D., they were converted to 
Christianity, and gradually took shape as the noble Hungarian nation, who, 
in a perilous time, stood with unflinching valor on the furthest outpost of 
Christendom, three times within ten days beating back the Turks beneath 
the walls of Belgrade (1456), and whose heroic fight against a giant 
tyranny this centuiy has seen with deep admiration. 



GREAT NAMES OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 

SiDONlUS Appollinaris, born in Gaul, 428 — Bishop of Arverni (Cler- 
mont) — an intimate friend of Theodoric — wrote poems and epistles — 
died 484. 

ZoziMUS, a Greek historian of the fifth century — chief work, " History 
of Rome from Augustus to Second Siege by Alaric." 

Priscian, probably born at Caesarea — lived at the court of Justinian — 
distinguished as a grammarian — chief work, " Treatise on Latin 
Grammar." 

BoETHius, born at Rome, 455 — consul under Odoacer and Theodoric — 
only Latin philosopher of his day — chief work, " On the Consolation 
of Philosophy, " written in the prison of Pavia, where he was exe- 
cuted — 526. 

Procopius, born at Caesarea, in end of fifth century — lived at Justinian's 
court — wrote " History of His Own Times," valuable as a link between 
ancient and mediaeval history — wrote also," Anecdota," a secret history 
• of Justinian's court. 

Cassiodorus, born about 470 — secretary of Theodoric — wrote " History 
of the Goths," afterwards abridged by the Goth Jornandes — other 
works were on orthography and education — died aged nearly loo. 

Gregory of Tours, bom in Auvergne, 544 — Bishop of Tours — wrote 
in Latin a history of France up to his own day — our only authority 
on the early Merovingian reigns. 

Augustine, prior of St. Andrews at Rome — sent by Gregory I., in 596, 
to preach to the English — the first Archbishop of Canterbury, where 
he died, about 607. 



OF HISTORY. g. 

Bede, born at Sunderland, about 673 — an English monk — surnanied the 
Venerable — chief work, " History of the English Church," published 
about 734 — died in 735. 

Winifred, bom in Devonshire, about 680 — otherwise known as Boniface 
— ^justly called the " Apostle of Germany," where he labored foi 
thirty yean> — made Archbiship of Mayence— slain by the Frisians m 
755- 



FOURTH PERIOD. 

raOK TEE ACCESSION OF CHARLEMA&NE TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CB J&AD2b> 



CHAPTER I. 

CHARLEMAGNE. 



Central Point : CEARLEMAGKE CROWNED EMFEBOR OF THE WEST AT ROME B7 
LEO IIL, 800 A.D. 

Early life— Reduces Aqnitaine— Charlemagne sole rnler of the Franks— Features of Ms 
policy— Destruction of the Saxon idol— WittiMnd— Saxony annexed— Renewal of the war 
— Conijuest of Lombardy- Expedition into Spain — Battle of Ronceralles — Repels the 
Avars — Coninest of the Ring — Crowned Emperor of the West — His sons — ^His foreign 
policy — Character and death — Treaty of Verdun. 

We now see the splintered fragments of western Europe — so often 
combined and dissolved since the great ruin of the Roman Empire— 
once more united into a solid, towering rock, the noblest landmark in 
the history of the Middle Ages ; and the hand, whose strong grasp is to 
hold these mixed and various elements in firm cohesion for three and 
forty years, is that of Charlemagne, who is known in German history by 
the more modest name of Karl der Gross. 

Charles, the son of Mayor Pepin and Bertha, was born about 742 ; ar.d it 
must not be forgotten that this great Austrasian Frank, although best known 
by his French name, was not a Frenchn\an at all in our sense of the word, 
but a thorough German by birth, speech, and residence. He was yet a 
child when his father was crowned and anointed king ; and, when that 
father died in 768, he was left to share with his elder brother, Carloman, 
the sovereignty of the Frankish kingdom. To Carloman were left 
Neustria, Burgundy, — in fact, all northern and central France ; to Charles, 
Austrasia, Thuringia, and other parts of Germany owning Frankish sway. 

The first great military deed of Charles was the conquest of Aquitaine ; 

and scarcely was that achieved, when his brother, having died 

771 in 771, the chiefs of Carloman's realm, passing over the 

A.D. infant children of the dead man, according to a custom common 

in those troubled times, chose the young conqueror to be their 

king. He was then twenty-nine years of age. 



GREA T E VEN TS OF HIS TOR V. 95 

His reign divides itself into two parts. The one, extending from its 
opening in 771, to the complete subdual of the Saxons in 804, ws^ spent 
in constant wars on almost every frontier ; the other, from 804 to his death, 
was devoted to the organization and improvement of the vast empire which 
his sword had won. 

The chief wars of Charlemagne were with the Saxons beyond the 
Rhine, the Lombards of Italy, the Saracens of Spain, and the Avars, -who 
occupied modern Hungary. He fought also with the Danes, and the Scla- 
vonic tribes on his eastern border. 

The guiding principle of Charlemagne's policy was this — to secure the 
affection of his subjects by working on two of the deepest feelings of our 
nature — patriotism and religion. He gained his aim by cherishing all the old 
German institutions, upon which the mass of his people looked with deep 
reverence, and by becoming the protector of the pope and the champion 
of the Church. 

The Saxons, who dwelt chiefly round the Weser, were Pagans, closely 
connected with the savage Frisians, by whom Boniface was martyred in 
755. To anticipate the attack of fierce and dangerous neighbors, and to 
open the way for the missionaries of the Church, seem to have been the 
motives of Charlemagne in this war. At a Diet of Worms he called his 
soldiers to the field. The opening campaign was full of evil 
omens for the Saxons. Their castle of Eresburg was taken ; 772 
but worse than such a loss was the destruction of their A.D. 
greatest idol, Irminsul. Within a spacious court, on a marble 
pill ar, it stood — the colossal statue of an armed soldier, carved in wood. 
In time of war it was carried by the priests into the field ; and, when 
the battle was over, all prisonei'S and cowards were slain at its feet in 
sacrifice. This image, round which the national worship centred, was 
broken to pieces by Charlemagne, and the pillar buried deep in the earth. 
Smitten with sudden terror, the Saxons sued for peace, giving twelve 
hostages as pledges of their good faith. 

The Saxon custom was to choose a leader of the whole nation only in 
times of emergency ; and when the crisis was past, the king sank to a level 
with the other chiefs. But now a man arose, who, by the force of his 
genius, became for years the master-spirit of his nation. This was Witti- 
kind, CO whose prowess the long, determined resistance of the Saxons 10 
the arms of Charlemagne was mainly owing. Stirred by this restless chief, 
tliey rose again and again. The war was hottest round Eresburg and 
Sigisburg, which, taken by the Frankish king, had been made his chief 
strongholds. Playing upon his desire to Christianize them, the defeated 
Saxons asked to be baptized, and promised co keep peace ; but whenever 
his armies were withdrawn, taJiing advantage of his absence in Italy ^nd 



96 GREAT EVENTS 

Spain, they relapsed into their bloody idolatry, and turned their ywoids 
upon the Christian missionaries. 

This went on for several years, until, in 779, Charlemagne, wearied with 
useless clemency, resolved to annex the Saxon country to his empire. He 
appointed bishops, and enacted laws for the conquered land. It gives us 
a painful notion of the savage state of those, sprung from the same stock 
as most of ourselves, when we remember that the laws enacted by Charle- 
magne as fittest for the Saxons bear a striking resemblance to that blood- 
stained code imposed by Draco upon the Athenians, in which death wa.s 
the punishment for almost every crime. 

Wittikind, who had fled to the Danish king in 777, appearing once 
more at the head of the Saxons, cut to pieces a great Prankish army at 
Sinthal. Never, perhaps, did Charlemagne's wrath blaze more fiercely 
out than when he heard this fatal news. Hurrying to the scene while his 
fury was still hot, he massacred in one day four thousand five hundred of 
those who had taken the field with Wittikind. The chief himself escaped 
again to the Northmen. In the next spring (783) Charlemagne gave the 
Saxons another stern lesson, by defeating two of the greatest armies they 
had ever mustered — the one under Wittikind at Dethmold, the other on 
the banks of the Hase in Westphalia. The Saxon chief soon abandoned 
the hopeless contest. Some feeble revolts followed ; but the strength of 
the nation was broken, and their final subdual dates from 804, when ten 
thousand of them were drafted away to Flanders, Brabant, and some dis- 
tricts of France. 

Charlemagne's first wife was the daughter of Desiderius, the Lombard 

king of Italy ; and, naturally enough, when he divorced her to marry 

Hildegarde, strong ill-will arose between the monarchs. This made the 

Frankish king lend an easy ear to the prayer of Pope Adrian I. for aid 

against the Lombards. His father and his grandfather had been enlisted on 

the pope's side ; and why should not he, a Roman patrician, anointed with 

holy oil, draw sword in the same cause? His army, piercing the passes 

of the Alps in two divisions, found the country all open to them, and the 

Lombard king shut up in Pavia. In Verona, which surrendered at once, 

he found the widow and sons of Carloman, who had fled to the court of 

Desiderius. Of them we hear no more. One after another the Lombard 

cities fell ; but Pavia stood firm, until Charlemagne, returning 

774: from a brilliant visit to Rome, drew the circle of blockade so 

A.D. closely round the city, that the starving garrison flung open 

their gates, and gave up their king. Desiderius spent the rest 

of his days in a cloister, while Charlemagne, becoming king of Lombardy 

assumed the famous iron crown worn by the old Longobard chiefs who 

first settled in Italy. 



OF HISTORY. 



97 



Some time before the accession of Charlemagne, the Mahometans of 
Spain, revolting against the Abbaside Caliphs, had set up the Emirate of 
Cordova ; but embers of strife were still alive among them, and a malcon- 
tent invited Charlemagne to cross the Pyrenees. Fired with 
the memory of his grandfather's glory, and hoping, too, to 778 
heighten the prestige of his own name as Defender of the a.d. 
Faith, he led his forces into Spain. Here, as at the Alps, he 
adopted the plan which he is said to have first applied, if not invented, 
of dividing his forces, and moving the different bands by converging 
routes upon one great centre. His chief point of attack was Saragossa, 
the fall of which made him master of Aragon and Navarre. A tract of 
country south of the Pyrenees was added to his empire under the name of 
the Spanish March. While the victors, laden with spoil, were returning 
into France, their rear-guard was cut to pieces in the pass of Roncevalles 
(Briar-valley) by the Basques or Vascons. Among the dead was. Count 
Rolando of Bretagne, the nephew of Charlemagne, whose name, embalmed 
in many a Norman romance, is immortalized in the verse of Ariosto. 

Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, was the son-in-law of Desiderius the Lom- 
bard. When the Lombard kingdom was destroyed, Tassilo, rising against 
Charlemagne, to whom he owed homage, secretly invited the Avars to 
support him in his rebellion. The rebel Duke was soon shut up in a con- 
vent ; but the Avars fulfilled their part of the agreement by invading 
Bavaria. In his first campaign against them Charlemagne penetrated as 
far as the Raab in Hungary. Then, called off by Saxon incursions> he 
left the war to his son Pepin, who, in 796, captured the Ring — a round 
timber fortress at Buda, full of gold and silver — an achievement by which 
the Franks, who had before that time possessed little more than thei.v 
swords, became well-nigh the richest nation in Europe. During this war 
Charlemagne began to dig a canal from the Danube to the Rhine — a 
grand idea, which, however, he never realized. The defeat of a rising in 
799 marks the end of the Avar power in Europe. Still, in the defiles of 
Mount Caucasus dwell a few war-like tribes of similar name ; but they are a 
mere shadow of the great nation smitten on the Danube by the conquer- 
ing sword of Charlemagne. 

Take now the central picture of the reign. Pope Leo III., attacked by 
a band of conspirators, was left bleeding, and all but dead, one April day, 
on the streets of Rome. On his recovery he visited Charlemagne at 
I'aderborn, where he was royally entertained, and whence he 
returned to Italy under the escort of nine Frankish nobles. 800 
The king himself soon followed. On Christmas day the proud- A.D. 
est chiefs and prelates of Italy and the Frankish land, glittering 
with purple and gold, stand round the high altar of St. Peter's. In the 

5 



98 UREAT EVENTS 

centre of the throng is a giant figure, whose dome-shajied brow and fl.ish- 
ing eye mark a great mind and heart. Clad in the long robe of a Roman 
patrician, he kneels on the steps of the altar and bows his head in prayer. 
Some minutes pass in silence. Then, with quick and sudden action, the 
noblest of the splendid priesthood places a crown upon the kneeler's 
head, and the walls ring with pealing shouts : " Long life and victory to 
Charles Augustus, Emperor of the Romans." Pope Leo III. has revived 
the Empire of the West, and its crown is sparkling on the brow of Char- 
lemagne. Though the emperor said that he would not have gone to the 
church if he had known of the pope's intention, there seems small doubt 
that this daring act only anticipated by a little his own long-cherished 
plans. 

So early as 781, when his eldest boy was only ten, Charlemagne, looking 
on to a time when he should have need of trusty viceroys, had divided his 
kingdom among his sons. Germany was given to Charles, Aquitaine to 
Louis, and Italy to Pepin. This arrangement enabled him to spend his 
latter years in comparative peace, for to his sons he left what petty wars 
were necessary to secure so vast a frontier. Of these three sons Louis 
alone survived him. 

The influence of Charlemagne, enthroned in his great palace at Aix-la- 
Chapelle, extended to the Byzantine court, and further still, to the Tigris, 
where Haroun al Raschid dwelt. The great caliph and the great em- 
peror were especial friends. But the best energies of Charlemagne 
were given to western Europe, on whose destinies he wrought so notable 
a change. A link, too, binds him to British history ; for, when Egbert 
fled from the cruel Beortric, he found a safe and pleasant retreat, and, no 
doubt, kindly advice and aid besides, in the court of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
Charlemagne feared only one foe, and that not for himself, but for his 
successors. The light galleys of the Norsemen were already swooping 
down on the British coasts, and threatening his own seaboard ; and the 
keen eye of the old warrior, piercing the future, could see the Raven of 
the North thrusting its beak into many a crack and cranny in the fair 
structure he had spent his life to rear. 

Charlemagne died of pleurisy in his seventy second year. ^ A 

814 year before, in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, amid the ap- 

A.D. plause of the assembled nobles, he had caused his only living 

son, Louis, to assume the imperial crown. 

Active and untiring, this great man never lost a minute he could help. 

Even while dressing, he heard the reports of his officers ; and ai he dined 

or supped, books of theology or history were read to him. Habits like 

these enabled him to get through an enormous mass of work, and yet 

neglect neither bodily exercise nor the cuU ire of his mind. Abroad he 



OF HISTORY. 



99 



hunted— at home he talked or studied with the learned friends in whose 
society he delighted. His genius was essentially military. His sword 
was seldom sheathed ; but war was with him, as it o'jght ever to be, the 
pioneer of civilization. 

Louis le Debonnaire, fitter for a monk's cell than a selfish court or 
brawling camp, succeeded his great father, and did all his gentle nature 
could for twenty-six years to humanize his subjects. But belted bishops 
and lawless chiefs were too strong for him. War among his three sons 
then divided the empire. Lothaire, the eldest, seized the imperial title ; 
but Charles and Louis, uniting, defeated him in 841, on the bloody field 
of Fontenaille. Two years later, a treaty was made at Verdun, by 
which France and Germany became separate and independ- 
ent states. Charles held France ; Louis ruled Germany ; 843 
while Lothaire received Italy, with some broken strips along A.D. 
the Rhone and Rhine. As had happened in the family of 
Clovis, the race of Charlemagne, called Carlovingians, grew very degener- 
ate ; and there is nothing in the history of kings, branded with nicknames, 
such as the Stammerer, the Fat, the Foolish, the Lazy, to challenge our 
notice or respect. Such men misgoverned France, until, in 987, under 
Hugh Capet, a new dynasty arose. With that date the history of the 
Franks ends ; that of the French begins. 

CARLOVINGIAN KINGS OP THE FRANKS. 

A.D. 

Pepin le Bref 752 

Charlemagne and Carloman 76S 

Charlemagne alone 771 

Louis I. (le Debonnaire) 814 

Charles (the Bald) 840 

Louis II. (the Stammerer) 877 

Louis III. and Carloman II 879 

Carloman alone 882 

Charles (the Fat) 884 

EuDES or Hugh, Count of Paris 887 

Charles III. (the Simple) 893 

Robert, Brother of Eudes 922 

RoDOLF OF Burgundy 923 

Louis IV. (d'Outremer) 936 

Lothaire 954 

Louis V. (the Lazy) 986-87 



lOO GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER II. 

MOSLEMS IN THE WEST AND THE EAST. 

Central Point: REIGN OF HAROUN AL RASCHID, 786 A.D. TO 808 A.D. 

Division of *he Moslem Empire — Battle of Xeres— Saracens take root in Spain — Emirate of 
Cordova founded— The Abbaside dynasty begins— Haroun al RascMd— His early wars— 
The letter of Nicephorns— Asia Minor ravaged— Policy of Haronn— The Emir-al-Omra— 
The Seljnk Turks— End of the Caliphate. 

In the time of Charlemagne we find the great empire of Islam, which 
had stretched from the Indus to the Atlantic, broken into four parts — the 
Emirate of Cordova in Spain ; the Abbaside Caliphate in Asia and Egypt ; 
and two kingdoms in Northern Africa — Mekines, answering to modem 
Morocco, and Kairouan, along the old Carthaginian shore. 

In 710 Tarik, a lieutenant of the Saracen general Musa, crossing the 

strait from Tangier with five hundred men, to reconnoitre the Spanish coast, 

landed at the rock, ever since called Gibraltar (the hill of Tarik). Next 

year, with twelve thousand men, he met and defeated at Xeres, Roderic, 

last of the Visigothic kings. The beaten monarch, who had 

711 come to battle crowned with pearls, and lounging in an ivory 

A.D. car, was drowned in the Guadalquivir, as he fled from the fatal 

field. Musa completed the conquest of the peninsula, driving 

the remnant of the Visigoths into the mountain-land of Asturias. 

Cordova, on the Guadalquivir, speedily became the centre of Moslem power 
in Spain. We have already seen how the march of the Crescent beyond the 
Pyrenees was checked at once and for ever at Tolirs by Charles the Ham- 
mer. Thrown back further and still further by Pepin and Charlemagne, the 
Saracens, building mosques and schools, and cutting out roads on every 
side, rooted themselves deep in central and southern Spain. And still 
deeper struck the roots of their power, when Abd-el-Rahman, only sur- 
vivor of the great Ommiyad line, fleeing from murder on the Euphrates, 
severed Sf)ain from the dominion of the caliphs, and erected 
755 the independent Emirate of Cordova. Then begins the most 
A.D. brilliant chapter in the story of Moslem power in Europe. 
When the Ommiyad dynasty was drowned in blood at Damas- 
cus, the sceptre of the caliphs was seized by the Abbasides — offspring of 
Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet — and they held it for more than five centuries 
(750-1258). Of this race the most distinguished was Haroun al Raschid 
(Aaron the Just), who reigned from 786 to 808. The fascinating pages of 
the " Arabian Nights," the delight of childhood, and of riper years too — 
our great Macaulay does not disdain to draw frequent illustrations from 
the charming book — have made this name a household word among us. 



OJ^ HISTORY loi 

We can still see the romantic caliph and his vizier, disguised as merchants, 
slipping out of the postern gate at dusk, to seek adventures in the narrovi? 
lanes of Bagdad. This great city, founded in 765, on the west bank of the 
Tigris, w^as for centuries the centre of Moslem power in Asia, the splen- 
did home of the earlier Abbaside caliphs, the scene of their later degra- 
dation, and the blazing tomb of Abdallah, last of the ill-fated line. 

Before his accession Haroun gained a soldier's name on the Bosphorus, 
where, from his camp on the hills of Scutari, he granted peace 
only on condition that the Empress Irene should pay a tribute 781 
of 70,000 golden pieces. During his caliphate he invaded the A.D. 
imperial territory eight times to enforce the payment of this sum. 

Nicephorus, having dethroned Irene, sent Haroun a letter. " The 
queen," wrote he, in the language of the chess-board, " considered you a 
rook, and herself a pawn. Restore the fruits of your injustice, or abide 
the determination of the sword." The imperial envoy at the same time 
cast a sheaf of swords at the caliph's feet. Haroun, with a smile, drew 
his scimitar — Saracen steel was then famous all the world over — and, with- 
out turning its edge, he hacked to pieces all the badly-tempered blades. 
Then, turning to his scribe, he bade him write : " Haroun al Raschid, Com- 
mander of the Faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog. I have read thy 
letter, thou son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou 
shalt behold my reply." 

He then ravaged Asia Minor from end to end, leaving the ruins of 
Heraclea on the Euxine shore, to mark the terrible meaning of his answer. 
And, to imprint the disgrace of submission deeper still, the emperor was 
compelled to stamp the tribute-gold with the heads' of Haroun and his sons. 

Haroun, in the East, rivalled the policy by which his friend Charle- 
magne made Aix-la-Chapelle the Western centre of genius and learning. 
In the gorgeous halls of Bagdad, too, poets and scholars found a home 
and rich rewards ; and under this kindly fostering the most brilliant period 
of Arabian literature began. The great blot upon the memory of this 
most illustrious of the caliphs was the massacre of the Barmecides, among 
whom were two of his trustiest viziers. He died in 808, while on an ex- 
pedition against the rebel Satrap of Khorasan. 

In the middle of the tenth century a new feature marked the history of 
the caliphate. The mayors of the palace, usurping the functions of the 
Frankish kings, found their parallel among the Moslems of Asia. The 
poor Caliph Rhadi (Ahmed IV.), helpless in the midst of an 
unruly people, gave all his power into the hands of Mahomet 940 
ben Raik, with the title of Emir-al-Omra (Emir of Emirs), re- A.D. 
5er\-ing for himself only the shadowy dignity of High Priest of 
the Mosque. This chief emirship became, of course, a bone of furious 



I02 GREAT EVENTS 

contention, For a century (945-1056) it wa"? hclfl by the great race of 
Buides. 

Then, sweeping from the Caspian, came the horse*^a"l standards of the 
Seljuk Turks, whose leader, Togrul Bei, became Emir-al- Omra, and whose 
conquests were soon extended to the borders of Syria. Still the Abba- 
sides clung to the scene of their vanished power, until in 1258 a host of 
Mongol Tartars seized Bagdad, and Abdallah, last of the ra'iphs, died 
amid the ruins of the once brilliant city. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE RISE OF THE ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE. 
Central Point: TIE REIGN OF OTHO THE GREAT, 936 A.D., TO 97? /.D. 

Treaty of Verdun — Rise of Eleotor-Dnkes— Henry the Towler— Establishes hnrs - OTganiaes 
cavalry— Otho the Great — Italian affairs — Repels Hungarians — Crowned Emperor of the 
West— A new day for Italy— Germany among the nations— Close of the Saxon line. 

By the treaty of Verdun in 843, Germany and France were politically 
separated, the Rhine forming the general line of division between the 
states. For sixty-eight years longer, Carlovingians continued to nile on 
the eastern bank of the severing stream ; but in gil these worn-out sons 
of a great sire sank from their royal seat in Germany. 

Conrad, Duke of Franconia, was then elected to rule the Germans ; buf 
it was not until 987, when Hugh Capet became king, that the Carlovingian 
power ceased in France. A marked difference is already manifest in the 
history of the two nations. The West Franks have all united into the 
French nation ; but their eastern kinsmen, though certainly forming as a. 
whole the German nation, still preserve a strongly-marked distinction into 
five leading tribes — Saxons, Thuringians, Franconians, Suabians, and 
Bavarians — whose dukes have learned, in times of trouble and weak rule 
to exercise a power independent of king or emperor. These dukes were 
the electors ; and up to the opening of this nineteenth century, when the 
Emperor of Germany was transformed into the Emperor of Austria, the 
imperial dignity continued to be elective. To the rise of these elector- 
dukes of the leading tribes can be traced that division of Germany 
into petty states, which is so strongly marked in the map of modern 
Europe. 

Henry the Fowler, elected on the death of Conrad, was the 

918 first German prince of the Saxon line. His surname is said 

A.D. to have been given, because the messengers, who came to offer 

him the crown, found him catching birds. His title was, 

as Conrad's had been, only King of the Franconians ; but the grand object 



OF HISTORY. 103 

of his policy, in which he was very successful, was to unite under his sway 
all the Germ an -speaking tribes. The Dukes of Alemannia and Bavaria 
were reduced beneath his sceptre. Lorraine, too, west of the Rhine, was 
subdued. But what called his highest powers into play was the continual 
irruption of the wild Hungarians upon his eastern frontier. He secured 
his borders by the establishment of " burgs," or fortified castles, along all 
the exposed lines of country. Many of these formed centres, round which 
altei^wards grew those great German cities, so famous in the history of art 
and commerce. Besides, he organized a powerful force of cavalry to 
match the Magyars, whose chief strength lay in their horsemen. For this 
he has been called the founder of knighthood ; but it cannot be said that 
knighthood was the institution of any one man or time. It was rather a 
national growth, dating from the earliest times of the German nation. 
No doubt its development received a powerful impulse from this prince, 
under whose system a high value was set upon a well-equipped and skilful 
cavalier. 

Henry died in 936. 

•Otho, his son, succeeded him. The ceremonies of coronation and 
anointment were performed at Aix-la-Chapelle by the Arch- 
bishops of Cologne and Mayence. Otho came to a troubled 936 
throne. Most of the great dukes rose against him ; but feeling A.D. 
the weight of his heavy hand, they soon grew submissive. 
And then' through all the duchies he scattered counts of the palace and 
margraves, whose presence was a check upon the dukes, and whose watch- 
fulness neutralized every stir of revolt. 

His attachment to the Church led him to turn his thoughts towards Italy. 
He had a selfish motive, too, for interfering there — his desire to gain the 
imperial crown, which had not been worn by a German prince for mora 
than fifty years. Most of the great Italian nobles were aspirants to the 
honor ; and the pope, in whose hand lay the power of conferring it, had 
no easy task to perform in deciding among the rivals. His great object 
naturally was to secure an emperor whose strong hand could defend him, 
both against his own insolent dependents, and against the Arab plunderers 
of southern Italy. 

Lothaire, King of Italy, having died, his beautiful widow Adelaide was 
seized by one Berengar, who meant by marrying her to secure the kingdom 
for himself She implored the aid of Otho, who was not slack 
to draw swoid in the cause of so fair a suppliant. In no long 951 
time he subdued Lombai-dy ; and his first wife, Edith, having A.D. 
been some time dead, he married Adelaide, an alliance by 
which he gained several steps towards the great object of his ambition. 

Four years later, he met the Hungarians, mustered in the full strength 



1 04 GREA T EVENTS 

of their nation, on the Lechfeld, near Augsburg, and by a bloody deteat 
gave a decisive check to their inroads upon Germany. At the same time, 
" to make assurance doubly sure," he formed a military district along the 
exposed frontier ; and from this tract — the East march, or Austria — have 
since sprung the bitterest woes of Hungaiy. Otho defeated the Sclavonians 
betw^een the Elbe and the Oder ; and penetrating to the Vistula, v/as as- 
tonished to find upon its banks, occupied by the brave Poles, fields loaded 
with grain, and markets alive with the hum of commerce. 

In 961 Otho's second and chief descent upon Italy took place. At 
Milan he was crowned with the iron circlet of the Lombard 
962 kings ; and in the following February, at Rom'e, he received 
A.D. from the hands of Pope John XII. the more distinguished dia- 
dem of the Western Empire. Just 162 years had passed since 
Charlemagne, in the new flush of the same high distinction, had given the 
Roman eagle a second head, to denote his double dominion over Rome 
and Germany. 

Otho found a fine field for the use of his newly-acquired power. Pope John, 
a man steeped in crime, justly branded in history as the Infamous, being 
detected in plots against the emperor whom he had himself crowned, was 
forced to flee. Leo VIII. was elected in his room. With his aid Otho 
began a wholesome reform in Italy. Sweeping away the lawless nobles, he 
placed the large domains under the gentler and juster sway of the bishops. 
Thus a new day dawned upon Italy, and liberty, almost forgotten, began 
again to flourish. To this change may be traced the growth of those bril- 
liant republics, by which the Italy of the Middle Ages was so much dis- 
tinguished. 
973 After a third visit to Italy, lasting six years, Otho came back 

A.D. to Germany to die. He drew his last breath in his old Saxon 
home. 

Through all the later history of Europe, Germany has never lost the 
place among the nations which he was among the first to win for her. 
And when we remember how much the world owes to the cradle of print- 
ing and Protestantism, and how closely Britain has become in these days 
of ours linked, through her most illustrious family, to that old Fatherland 
of her main race, we cannot but be glad that the century succeeding that 
which wept for Charlemagne, saw in Otho a wearer of the imperial 
crown so worthy of its ancient fame and its brightening splendor. 

Otho II., Otho III., and Henry II., were the remaining princes of the 
Saxon dynasty. The crown then passed to a Frankish line, of whom the 
first was Conrad II., elected in 1024. 



OF HISTORY. 105 

THE SAXON AITD FRANEISH EMPERORS OF &ERMANT. 

A. P. 

Conrad 1 911 

Henry I 918 

Otho the Great 936 

Otho II 973 

Otho III 983 

Henry II 1002 

Conrad II 1024 

Henry III 1039 

Henry IV 1056 

Henry V 1 106 

Lothaire II 1125 

Interregnum 1138 

Conrad III 1138 

Frederic Barbarossa 1152 

Henry VT 1190 

Philip 1198 

Otho IV 1208 

Frederick II ...1212 

Conrad IV 1250 

William 1250 

Interregnum 1256-73 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BYZANTINE COURT. 

Central Point : REIGN OF JOHN ZIMISCE3, 969 A.D. TO 975 A.D. 
Position of the Eastern Empire — The Image Controversy— Rise of the (Jreek Church — The 
Macedonian dynasty — Leo VL and John Zimisces — Byzantine government — Sketch of 
the Court— Approach of the Crusades. 

The Eastern Empire, pressed between two gigantic and growing 
dominions — the German empire on the west, and on the east the calipliate 
of the Abbasides — nevertheless held its ground as a centre of civilization 
and refinement, Constantinople looking loftily down on the barbaric 
pomp of Aix-la-Chapelle and the Oriental splendor of Bagdad. 

One hundred and sixty years after the death of Justinian, a great con- 
troversy about the worship of images began to agitate tiie mind of 
Europe. East and West were divided against each other, and 
against themselves. Leo III., the Isaurian, then Emperor of the 725 
East, believing that the victories of Islam were owing more A.D. 
to Christian weakness than to Moslem strength, resolved to 

5* 



Io6 GREAT EVENTS 

root out the idolatry which had struck its roots so deeply in the Church 
At once the factious spirit of tine populace, no longer spending itself in 
trivial fights about the green and blue jockeys of the circus, found a new 
and expansive field of action. 

All Christendom was severed into two great bands — Eikonodouloi (image- 
servers) and Eikonoklastai (image-breakers). Pope Gregory III. solemnly 
denounced the sin of image-breaking, under pain of excommunication. 
But, in spite of threat and curse the work went on, and a gulf, never 
since bridged over, grew between the Churches of Rome and Constanti- 
nople. The strife lasted for a hundred and twenty years, lulled only for 
a season, but not settled, by a decision of the second Council of Nicsea, 
in 787, which sought to cast oil on the waves by permitting the venera- 
tion, but forbidding the worship of images, until the final triumph 
of the image party in the Council of Constantinople in 842. From this 
controversy we may date the rise of the Greek Church, whose present 
stronghold is the Russian empire. The natural effect of the schism was 
to make the pope lean more strongly upon the western emperor, whose 
ascendency in European politics followed as a matter of course. 

The rule of the Macedonian dynasty for nearly two centurie? (867 to 
105 ?)> contains some of the most brilliant pages in Byzantine history. 
Hordes of barbarians, who, bursting through, had settled within the bar- 
riers of the empire, were converted to Christianity, and thus bound to the 
centre by the strongest ties. And never were the silk-looms and wool-marts 
of Constantinople so busy. Far west in Germany, and northward through 
all Russia, their beautiful fabrics were prized. Through the bazaars of the 
Byzantine capital the great tide of traffic from the East poured into Europe. 

The ablest of the Macedonian emperors were Leo VI. (886-911), the 
Philosopher, author of a work on " Military Organization," and John 
Zimisces, who, during his reign of six years (969-975), restored the glory 
of the imperial name by his military exploits. John's most notable 
achievement was his defeat of the Russians. Swatoslaus, whose bed was 
a bear-skin, and whose meat was horse-flesh (such were early Russian 
generals), had swept all before him from the Volga to the Danube ; and, 
piercing to Adrianople, was menacing the city of Constantine. John 
drove him back upon the Danube, broke into his strong camp, and sent 
him, with only a wreck of his army, famished and spiritless, back to his 
native wilds. • Then, in sight of all Constantinople, the doughty little 
hero, climbing a great horse, paced in triumph through the streets with a 
golden crown on his head, and a garland of laurel in his hand. 

The government of the Byzantine court was a thorough despotism. 
The emperor, who was dignified with the title " Autocrat," lived in 
splendid style. Take, as a specimen, the following sketch of an audience 
granted to some foreign envoys: 



OF HISTORY. 107 

The ambassadors, passing through endless files of body-guards, glitter- 
ing with brilliant armor and suits of every hue, beneath the rustle of 
silken banners, over Persian carpets strewn with roses and myrrh, at lasi 
enter the gorgeous palace of the erij'ires?. The air is loaded with per- 
fume ; and, when they have reached the top of the marble stair leading 
to the hall of audience, suddenly the curtains, which fell in thick folds at 
their very feet, are drawn back, as if by magic, and a scene of bewilder- 
ing splendor bursts upon their gaze. Upon a golden throne sits the em- 
peror, robed in purple and white. Beside him is his beautiful wife ; and 
a throng of courtiers in white, the color of the court-dress, encircle the 
imperial pair. A golden palm-tree overshadows the throne, and flitting 
about in its branches are flocks of artificial birds of the brightest plumage. 
The lions carved in gold and silver, that guard the throne, spring forward, 
ramping and roaring with terrific force. And, high above every sound, 
swells the mellow peal of trumpets. The barbarian envoys, poor Tartars 
or Sclavonians, sink to the earth ; while the German knights, remaining 
erect, though awestruck by the costly glare, feel their great rough hearts 
dying within them, and every word of their carefully conned speeches 
passing clean out of their bewildered brains. 

A day was coming, however, when all this magnificence was to change 
masters. Great events were brooding over Europe, when the Christian 
centuries passed into their second decade. The Crusades were at hand ; 
and in the wild hurry and crowding of these religious wars Constantinojile 
was destined to suffer heavily. 

MACEDONIAN DYNASTY— EASTERN EMPIRE. 

A. D. 

Basilius 1 867 

Leo VI 886 

Alexander and Constantine VII 911 

ROMANUS 919 

Constantine VIII 920 

Five Emperors rule 928 

Romanus II 959 

NiCEPHORUS II. (Phocas) 963 

John Zimisces 969 

Basilius II. and Constantine IX 975 

Romanus III 1028 

Michael IV 1034 

Michael V 1041 

Constantine X. and Zoe 1042 

Theodora 1054 

Michael VI 1056-57 



Io8 GREAT EVENTS 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NORSEMEN. 

Central Point : SETTLEMENT OP ROLLO, THE SEA-KINa, IN NORMANDY, 9U A.D. 

Forebodings of Charlemagne— Home of the ViklLger— Battle of Braavalla— Their rovings be- 
gin — Norse passion for war— Ansgar — Norsemen in England — Rollo's invasion of Nor- 
mandy—Speedy refinement of Normans— Ruricfonnds Russia— The Varangian life-gnards 
- -Normans in sonthem Italy. 

The Emperor Charlemagne, looking out one day over the blue 
Mediterranean, saw the snake-like galleys of the Norsemen stealing 
along the horizon, and, as he looked on them, he wept for his descendants. 

Alieady, for many a year, as soon as the spring sunshine had unlocked 
the sea, these Vikings — sea-kings, as they called themselves — stirred by a 
restless, warlike spirit, had pushed out from the deep, rocky y?on/j of Scan- 
dinavia, steering south and southwest. In the names Norway, and 
Normandy, we still trace their old home, and the scene of one of their 
most successful descents. A branch of the great Teutonic family, they had 
spread over Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, from which lands, centuries 
earlier, had come the famous Goths — Teutons too. 

To guard the mouth of the Elbe against the Norsemen, Charlemagne 
built there a strong castle, which served as a nucleus for the great town of 
Hamburg. Before his reign their warlike fire had spent itself within 
the circle of their own lands. "We read, in particular, of a desperate 
battle fought in 740, on the heath of Braavalla, between Harold Gold- 
tooth, the Dane, and Sigurd Ring, the Swedish king. Harold, old and 
blind, died like a hero on the field ; and Sigurd ruled in Scandinavia. 

But then, sweeping both shores of the North Sea, began their wider 
rangings, which have left deep and lasting marks upon European history. 
One of the earliest of these rovers, Regnar Lodbrok, Sigurd's son, seized 
by Saxon Ella as he was ravaging Lindisfarne, shouted his war-song to 
the last, while snakes were stinging him to death in a Northumbrian 
dungeon. 

Words cannot paint the ferocity of these northern warriors. Blood was 
their p.assion ; and they plunged into battle like tigers on the spring. 
Everything that could feed their craving for war they found in their relig- 
ion and their songs. Their chief god, Odin, vvas the beau ideal oi a Norse 
warrior ; and the highest delight they hoped for in Valhalla, their heaven, 
was to drink endless draughts of mead from the skulls of their enemies. 
There was, they thought, no surer passport to heaven than a bloody death 



OF HISTORY. 109 

amid heaps of slain. A-nd their songs, sung by Skalds^ when the feast 
was over, and still heard among the simple, fur-clad fishermen, who alone 
remain to represent the wild Vikinger, ring with clashing swords, aad all 
the fierce music of battle to the death. 

But into the very centre of this dark, raging barbarism sparks of truth fell, 
which brightened and blazed until the fierce idolatry lay in ashes. Ansgar, 
the Apostle of the North, and first Archbishop of Hamburg, pressing 
with a few monks through fen and forest, early in the ninth century, 
preached the cross at the court of Biorn, on the banks of Maelarn. 

England and France, as was natural from their position, suffered most 
in the descents of the Norsemen. During a part of the time that Harold 
Haarfager (Fair-haired) reigned in Norway (863 to 931), Alfred, King of 
Wessex, the mightiest of all the Norsemen's foes, was laying the founda- 
tion of British greatness. Little more than a centuiy later, Alfred's 
crown passed to the Norseman Canute, and Norsemen wore it for 
twenty-four years. Then a little gap, and William, no longer a Norse- 
man, but a Norman — mark well the change of name, for it denotes a 
deeper change of rough sea-kings into steel-clad knights — sat as Conqueror 
on the English throne, and set the wild Norse blood flowing dovsm through 
the whole line of British sovereigns. 

According to the Norse custom of piercing a land to the heart through 
its rivers, a swarm of boats, gilt and painted like dragons, pushed up the 
Seine in 901. The captain of these pirates was Rolf Ganger, or Rollo. 
Seizing and fortifying Rouen, they made it the centre of a marauding 
warfare that lasted for years. Wherever a branch stream met the main cur- 
rent, up they went to its very springs. New arrivals swelled the fleet ; 
the discontented Frankish peasants flocked to Rouen ; Paris 
was twice besieged. Charles the Simple, terror-stricken and 911 
helpless, yielded up, by a treaty concluded at St. Clair, on the A.D. 
Epte, the rich fields of Normandy and Bretagne to Rollo, who, 
as Duke of Normandy and peer of France, took an oath of fealty to 
him. Already another Norse chief, Hastings, noted for his dash upon 
England in Alfred's later years, had settled on French soil as Count of 
Chartres. 

The infusion of Norse blood among the kings and people of England 
has just been noticed. Here, then, is the same fresh, vigorous stream flow- 
ing into France ; and, certainly, of the many elements which have com- 
bined to make the French a great nation, this is not the least important. 
The old love of the salt waves still haunts la belle N'ormandie, from whose 
smiling fields have come the greatest admirals and best sailors of France. 

RoUo's men, marrying French wives, soon laid aside the rude Norse 
speech, except a few nautical words, which are still sung out by French 



1 1 o GREA T E VENTS 

captains to French crews. They began to speak the common French dia- 
lect. Their love of enterprise turned into new channels. The pirates 
became ploughmen ; but every day the ploughmen grew more polished 
and poetic. Earing and sowing and reaping for their daily bread, they still 
cherished in their breasts a delight in the dai-ing and the marvellous. 
Chivalry took deep root among them. 

Their poets, no longer skin-clad skalds, but gay trouveres, still sang of 
war, but in strains that gave the earliest shape and polish to that graceful 
language in which La Fontaine and Molifere have written ; and in the 
great arena of the Crusades no knights dealt harder blows at the Infidels, 
or splintered lances more gracefully in the tilt-yard, than did the offspring 
of those rough, old, yellow-haired Vikings who, but two hundred years 
before, had swept up the Seine in their dragon-ships, yelling the praises 
of the blood-stained Odin. 

But not by sea only did the Norsemen spread. The northeast of 

Europe was filled with Sclavonian tribes, by whom two chief cities were 

founded — Novgorod on Lake Ilmen, and Kiev on the Dnieper. Some 

Norsemen, known as Waeregs (rovers) — the name was after- 

862 wards Graecised into Varangians — were invited to rule over one 

A.D. of these tribes, who were plagued with quarrels among their 

own chiefs. With others Ruric the Jute answered the call ; 

and entering Novgorod, he founded a kingdom, out of which has grown 

the great empire of Russia.* 

Oleg, guardian of Ruric's son, added much to the power of the Russo- 
Norsemen by the conquest of Kiev. The Christian worship, according 
to the forms of the Greek Church, was first made known in Russia under 
Olga, the daughter-in-law of Ruric ; and it was formally adopted as the 
state religion by her grandson Vladimir I., who was baptized in g8o. For 
seven hundred and thirty-six years (862-1598) Ruric's descendants, of 
whom the last was Feodor, filled the Russian throne. 

Through Russia the Norsemen reached Constantinople ; but thither they 
came, not to conquer, but to defend. Vladimir having dismissed his 
Danish guard, they took service under the Byzantine emperors ; and no- 
where could be seen finer troops than these Varangian life-guards, with 
their dark bear-skins and glittering steel, the heavy broadsword swinging 
by their sides, and the two-edged axe poised on their shoulders. None 
but Scandinavians were at first allowed to enlist in their ranks ; but, when 



* The origin of the name Russia is much disputed. Some suppose that one of the 
Sclavonian tribes was called Russuiak, Others, with more probability, say that it 
is a Norse word signifying " Wanderers ;" while others again lake it from the name 
of the Gothic tribe Rhoxalani. 



OF HISTORY. Ill 

William of Normandy scattered the Saxons at Hastings =ome of the fugi- 
tives were admitted as recruits. 

A few Norman pilgrims, returning in 1016 from the Holy I^and, helped 
the Prince of Salerno, in southern Italy, to repel an attack of Saracen 
pirates. Here, then, was a new field of warlike enterprise, where sharp 
swords were sure to bring a good price ; and hither flocked over the Alps 
thousands of Norman adventurers. They at first took service 
under the Byzantine emperors, whose catapans, or governors, 1040 
were struggling to recover Sicily from the Saracens ; but irri- A.D. 
tated at the mean rewards they received for hard fighting, they 
seized Apulia and Calabria for the balance due. Foremost in the warlike 
band were two brothers from Hauteville in lower Normandy — Robert 
Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, and Roger, Count of Sicily. 

Guiscard, a stalwart, handsome Norman, whose ruddy cheek and drooping 
moustache of golden flax almost won the heart of his fair foe, Anna Com- 
nena, made two inroads upon Greece. In the first of these 
was fought the great battle of Durazzo, where, by a strange 1081 
destiny, the Varangian life-guards of the Byzantine camp met A.D. 
their countrymen in battle, and were beaten. The conquest 
of Sicily from the Saracens was achieved by Roger, whose son of the same 
name was crowned first king of the fertile island. In less than a century, 
however, this Norman power in the south of Italy melted away, and the 
rough Norse warriors, having played out their part in history right well by 
giving new life to worn-out Europe, soon disappear from our view as a 
distinct nation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LIFE AT THE COURT OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

The emperor's dress— Meals and sleep— His literary friends— His daughters— Aix-la-Chapelle 
—The palace— The college— Counts of the palace— The Great Assembly— "De Villis." 

Charlemagne in undress wore a linen shirt and breeches, a tunic 
fringed with silk, stripes of cloth swathing his legs, and leather shoes. In 
winter a fur jacket kept him warm. A blue cloak, and a sword with hilt 
and be.t of gold, completed his equipment. But on grand occasions, such as 
high charch solemnities or the reception of ambassadors, he shone out in a 
magnificent costume sparkling with gold and jewels. His love for the 
national Frank dress was so strong, that we find him only twice exchang- 
ing it for the Roman garb. 

We are told that he was hunting one day with his courtiers, when a vio- 
lent storm of wind and rain came on. The silks and furs of the richly 



1 1 2 GREA T E VENTS 

dressed train were soaked through, at which the monarch, who was dressed 
in simple sheep-skin, laughed heartily. On his return to the palace, he 
mischievously kept them in attendance on him until their fine clothes 
were all shrunk and ruined. And next day, directing them to appear in 
these same garments, he took occasion to read the poor faded dandies a 
lecture upon their affectation and useless luxury. 

He dined off four dishes ; and was very fond of roast venison, newly 
killed, and served up to him on the spit. At table books of history and 
Augustine's " City of God " were often read aloud to him. In sunnner, 
after eating a few apples at his mid-day meal, he took a simple cup of wine 
(he hated drunkenness), and then slept for two or three hours. ■ At night 
he was very restless ; and we read of him rising and dressing four or five 
times in a single night. He held a levee of his friends while dressing in the 
morning. 

He was a first-rate Latin scholar, and knew something of Greek. As- 
tronomy was one of his favorite studies. With the learned men who 
thronged his court, he lived on terms of the most playful intimacy. To put 
them more at their ease, he was known among them as David ; Alcuin was 
Horace ; Angelbert, the chancellor, a student of Greek, was Homer ; 
another of the set, skilled in moulding verse, was Virgil. So, all royal 
pomp cast aside, the great monarch argued, wrote, and studied with his 
lettered friends. Nor did he disdain to take lessons from them. Peter 
of Pisa taught him grammar ; Alcuin gave him logic and astronomy ; and, 
when in his old age a new way of writing came into fashion, the rude 
Frankish characters being exchanged for Roman letters, he had models 
kept near his pillow that he might practise the new art when he awoke at 
night. 

The daughters of Charlemagne, whose bad conduct was the source of 
much grief to him, were occupied at home in the simple domestic duties 
of the household, stitching, cooking, and cleaning the rooms. But when 
the emperor left home, it was his custom to carry his sons and daughters 
in his train wherever he went. 

Aquis Granum, now Aix-la-Chapelle, a city of Rhenish Prussia near the 
Belgian frontier, was the northern capital of Charlemagne's empire. The 
town was founded by the Romans ; and the French name, by which we 
call it, is a compound, denoting its sulphur springs (Aix for Aqure) and 
the chapel built there by Pepin. This fertile basin, with its pleasant 
stream and sheltering hills, was a favorite resort of Charlemagne, who 
spared no pa'ns to make the city worthy of his fame. 

Here he resolved to build a palace, which should be the wonder of the 
world. The pope had given him some magnificent porphyry pillars and 
niosaic pavements from Ravenna, such as France could not produce, 



OF HISTORY. 



I^ 



Gathering workmen from every part of the Continent, he soon beheld a 
splendid building, with gates of the finest brass, and marble walls which 
enclosed, among many halls and galleries, a library, a college, a theatre, 
and baths, in some of which a hundred persons could swim at once. On 
all sides clustered houses for the courtiers, and large rooms warmed with 
stoves, where all classes might at all times find shelter and comfort. A 
wooden gallery connected this great building with the chapel of the city. 

The Royal College was under the special charge of the great Alcuin. 
And the library there collected, preserved for modem times some rare 
and precious volumes of the ancient literature. Under the fostering care 
of Charlemagne, education, radiating from this centre, began to flourish 
everywhere ; and soon every province could boast its college or school. 
Every monasteiy endowed by the emperor was bound to maintain a 
school. Among the seminaries of France, Orleans was then specially 
noted. 

Although Charlemagne took the advice of the wise and brave around 
him in cases of difficulty, yet he does not seem to have had any regular 
privy council. But, under the imperial roof, often presided over by the 
great man himself, sat the highest court in the realm. There the prin- 
cipal courtiers, no mere gaily-dressed flutterers round a throne, were 
obliged to work as hard as the busiest lawyers, in deciding knotty cases 
of appeal. They were called the Counts of the Palace. 

The Great Assembly of the Franks met twice a year. Of these meet- 
ings, however, the earlier was the more important — the second being 
rather used to overtake the arrears of state business. The field, thronged 
with ambassadors from almost all the lands in Europe, was a glittering 
scene. Here the laws were framed and the taxes for the next year de- 
creed. For days and nights before the meeting of the council, groups of 
vassals, laden with bags of grain, or leading horses by the head, poured in 
from the country, which was budding with early spring, to pay in money 
or in kind their yearly gifts, corresponding to our modern rents. 

The Capitularies of Charlemagne — that is, the enactments which he 
framed with the aid of the nobles and the bishops — descend to most mi- 
nute details. One headed " De Villis " is particularly interesting from the 
glimpses it gives of the country life at the manors of the emperor. The 
judex (steward) is enjoined to look after the bees and the poultry, the 
fish-ponds and the byres. Things made with the hand, such as butter, 
mead, preserved meat, wine, and vinegar, were to be very clean. Hawks* 
nests were to be preserved ; and swans, peafowl, pheasants, and geese to 
be kept for ornament. The servants were not to idle at fairs ; the ac- 
counts were to be accurately kept ; and a general taking of stock was to 
usher in the New Year. 



1 1 4 GREA T E VENTS OF HISTOR Y. 

The fruit-trees and flower-gardens received special notice. Apples, 
pears, plums, chestnuts, filberts were to be grown. A list of some seventy 
names of flowers and herbs, headed with roses and lilies, appears amongst 
the enactments. The gardener was to have Jove's beard (which we call 
house-leek) growing on the roof of his cottage. The cars were to be 
covered with well-sewed hides, so that in passing a river they might not 
let in water. Flour and wine, a shield and lance, a bow and arrows, 
were to be stowed in eveiy vehicle. And Sunday was to be strictly kept. 
On that day none were permitted to work in field or garden, to hunt, to 
wash clothes, to sew, or to shear. The law courts did not sit ; and no 
cars might be used except for three purposes — warlike expeditions, the 
carriage of victuals, and the burial of the dead. 

GREAT NAMES OF THE FOURTH PERIOD. 

Alcuin, born at York — pupil of Bede — lived much at the court of Char- 
lemagne, whom he taught — wrote poetry, theology, and elementary 
science — died in 804. 

Paul Warnefrid (about 740-799), called the Deacon — an Italian — con- 
nected first with the Lombard Desiderius — taught Greek at the court 
of Charlemagne — a poet and historian — chief work, " History of the 
Lombards." 

Eginhard, an Austrasian Frank — secretary of Charlemagne — wrote a life 
of that monarch and other historical works — thought to have died 
about 841. 

John Scotus Erigena, bom in Ii-eland — the only learned layman of the 
Dark Ages — lived chiefly in France about the middle of the ninth 
century — theology and metaphysics were his favorite studies — died 
in 875. 

Alfred, king of England — translator of the Psalms, Bede's History, 
^sop's Fables, etc., into Saxon — like Charlemagne, a great patron 
of learned men — died 901 A.D. 

AviCENNA, or Aeen Sina, born near Bokhara, 980 A.D. — a great Arabian 
physician and philosopher — for centuries his great medical work, 
" The Canon," continued to be the standard authority even in Europe 
— author of nearly one hundred works — chief philosophical work, 
" The Remedy." 

GuiDO D'Arezzo, born at Arezzo in Tuscany, in end of tenth century — a 
Benedictine monk — famous as the inventor of our musical notation— 
his work "Micrologus" describes his plan of writing and j:eaching 
music — died in middle of eleventh century. 



FIFTH PERIOD. 

FROM THi: BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADES TO TEE ESTABUSHMENT OF 
SWISS INDEPENDENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CRUSADES. 

A.D. 

Central Points : JERUSALEM TAKEN B7 CRUSADERS 1099 

RETAKEN BY SALADIN U87 

RESTORED TO THE CHRISTIANS BY TRUCE.. 1229 
TAKEN BY THE TURKS 1239 

Origin of the Crusades — Peter the Hermit — Two general councils — The first rush — Battle of 
Dorylaeum— Siege of Antioch— Capture of Jerusalem — Godfrey made king — Templars and 
Hospitallers— St. Bernard— March of Conrad III. — Disasters of the second Crusade— 
Saladin takes Jerusalem — Siege of Acre — Great muster of troops — March of Fred. Red- 
beard— Capture pf Acre— False glare of the Crusades— Deeds of Richard I.— End of third 
Crusade— The Teutonic knights. 

Jerusalem, the cradle of the Christian faith, suffered cruel insults at 
the hands of the Mahometans. Hakem, third of the Fatimide caliphs of 
Egypt, himself aspiring to the honors of a god, razed the Church of the 
Resurrection in loog, and spared no pains to destroy the very rock-cave, 
which was pointed out as the Holy Sepulchre. The Turks then seized 
the city ; Christian pilgrims, flocking thither in crowds of thousands dur- 
ing the eleventh century, were cruelly maltreated by them. No Christian 
could pass the gates without first paying a piece of gold to these Tartar 
conquerors. Every day brought back to Europe weary palmers, who had 
been scoffed at and spat upon by the Infidels. This was borne for a time, 
but soon grew intolerable ; and the indignation, burning deep and long in 
the heart of Christendom, found its first great utterance in the wild elo- 
quence of Peter the Hermit. 

This man, said to have been a native of Amiens, was a soldier in hi? 
youth. Upon the death of his wife, he retired broken-hearted to a 
hermit's cell, from which, however, his innate love of change drove him a 
pilgrim to the Holy Land. Returning thence full of anger at the 
degradation of the sacred spot, he obtained leave from Pope Urban II. 
to call all true Christians to arms ; and as he passed through It.ily and 



I T 6 GREA T E VENTS 

France, a fleshless spectie, clad in mean raiment, with bare head and feet, 

and staggering under a heavy crucifix, his fierce war-cry woke an echo in 

millions of hearts. 

Within the same year, two general councils were called by the pope — 

one at Placentia, the other at Clermont, in Auvergne. At the 

1095 latter, both the pope and the hermit spoke in words of fire. 

A.D. With one voice all who heard cried out in the old French, 

" Dieu li volt! " — " It is the will of God ! " and few there were 

who left the old market-place on that day without a red cross on th« 

shoulder, to mark them as soldiers in the sacred cause. 

THE FIRST CRUSADE. 
(1096-IO99.) 

The first movement of the Crusaders was a mad and aimless rush. A 
rabble of 300,000, comprising not men alone, but women and children, 
and even some stricken with deadly disease, gathered under Peter, and a 
soldier called Walter the Penniless. They passed through Germany with 
no achievement but the murder and robbery of thousands of Jews. 
Their plundering roused the rage of the Hungarians and Bulgarians, who 
set upon them ; and it was with sorely thinned and broken ranks that they 
reached Constantinople, where Alexis reigned. He persuaded them to fix 
their camp upon the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. Moving thence 
towards Nice, in Bithynia, they were, all but a very few, cut to pieces by 
the Turks. 

The great captain of the first Crusade (War of the Cross), was Godfrey 
of Bouillon, or Boulogne, the Duke of Basse-Lorraine. There w^ere, 
besides, among the chiefs, Robert of Normandy, Hugh, the brother of 
the French king, Stephen of Blois, and Bohemund of Tarentum. Nine 
months were consumed in mustering the great army of more than half a 
million, and leading it by different routes to Constantinople. Having 
crossed the strait, the Crusaders moved, with horns blowing and drums 
beating, upon Nice, which fell after a siege of seven weeks. 

At Dorylaeum was fought one of the greatest cavalry battles the world has 
ever seen, Considei-ably more than 100,000 Turkish horse, with curved 
sabres and light ^'(fr^^^j, were scattered before the lances of the Christian 
knights. Soliman, Sultan of the Turks, fell back in rapid flight. But all this 
glory was purchased by much suffering. Thirst was the worst woe that befell 
the Christians ; we are told that once, when water was found after days of 
scorching drought, 300 of them drank till they died. They threaded the 
rocky wilds of Taurus, fainting with the weight of their armor under 
the burning sun ; and at last saw, set in the emerald meadows that line the 
Orontes. the fair turrets of the Syrian Antioch. 



OF HISTORY. 



117 



Here the war raged anew. The Christian knights vied with one an- 
other in valorous deeds. Godfrey one day cut his foe in two ; one half 
fell into the river, the other sat still on horseback — " by which blow," 
quaintly says Robert the Monk, " one Turk was made two Turks." The 
siege was pushed on amidst the worst miseries of winter, famine, and dis- 
organization, until, by the treachery of a Syrian officer, the Crusaders 
were enabled, one dark, stormy night, to surprise the town. A Saracen 
army, led by Kerboga, Prince of Mosul, advancing to the rescue, was then 
repulsed with great slaughter ; and Bohemund, the son of Robert Guis- 
card, was made prince of the captured city. 

After a delay of some months at Antioch, the Crusaders, now reduced to 
20,000 foot and 1 500 horse, moved southward towards Jerusalem. They, 
ought to have reduced the great stronghold of Acre, with its vast granaries, 
as they passed ; but, eager to crown their enterprise with the capture 
of the Holy City, they contented themselves with extorting a promise 
from the Emir of Acre, that, if Jerusalem fell, he would give them up his 
keys. At last the capital of Palestine, lovely even in her deso- 
lation, rose in their view. The knights, springing from their 1099 
saddles, wet the turf with tears of mingled joy and grief. A.D. 
Barefooted and weeping the little band advanced. Under a 
sky of burning copper, with no water in the pools and brooks, they fought 
for five long weeks before Godfrey and his stormers stood victorious 
within the walls. The massacre of 70,000 Moslems, and the burning of 
the Jews in their synagogue, stained the glory of the conquerors. 

A kingdom of Jerusalem being then founded, Godfrey was elected 
king. But modestly and wisely he chose rather the humbler title of Baron 
of the Holy Sepulchre. The opening of his reign was signalized by the 
battle of Ascalon, in which he defeated the Sultan of Egypt. After this 
victory, which closed the first Crusade, many of the actors in the great 
drama went home. Among these was Peter the Hermit, whose checkered 
life found a close in the abbey of Huy, founded by himself on the bank 
of the Meuse. 

The last great act of Godfrey's life was the enactment of a code of 
feudal laws, called the " Assize of Jerusalem." He had scarcely shaped 
these, and seen their earliest working, when death cut him off, in the first 
year of his reign. 

THE SECOND CRUSADE. 
(1I47-II49.) 

BefoTS the second Crusade began, forty-eight years passed, during which 
the infant kingdom of Jerusalem was upheld chiefly by two orders of 
military monks — the Hospitallei-s and the Templars. The former, whose 



1 1 8 GREA T E VENTS 

scarlet surcoat was embroidered with a silver cross, derived their name 
from their being at first attached to an hospital, dedicated to St. John. 
The Templars, afterwards so haughty and powerful, calling themselves so 
from their residence close to the site of Solomon's Temple, sprang from 
a little society of nine knights, who bound themselves by an oath to pasi 
chaste and humble lives, in constant war against the enemies of the faith. 
They received the sanction of Baldwin II. in 1118. 

When the news reached Europe that Edessa, beyond Euphrates, one 
of the strong outposts of the faith against the encroaching Moslems, had 
fallen before Zenghi, Prince of Mosul, the smoldering fire began to blaze 
anew. St. Bernard took the place which had been filled by Peter the 
Hermit. 

Born in Burgundy in logi, Bernard became a monk in early youth. As 
Abbot of Clairvaux, in Champagne, he was soon noted for his austerity 
and abstinence. Coarse bread, beech-nuts, and even the leaves of trees, 
formed at one time the only food of his monks and himself. But the 
spirit within lived and glowed, in spite of pale cheek and wasted frame. 
And when, on the hillside at Vezelai, in 1146, he addressed a countless 
crowd of French knights and nobles, urging them to another Crusade, 
the old war-cry, " It is the will of God," rang through the air, and so great 
was the rush for the Cross, that he and his priests were obliged to tear 
up their vestments in order to supply the eager soldiery with the yacred 
symbol. 

His eloquence enlisted in the war Louis VII. of France, and Conrad 
III. of Germany. Their combined armies, amounting to 300,000, took 
the same route as the first Crusaders had taken — through Germany and 
Hungary right on to Constantinople, and so over the straits into Asia. 
But the schemes of Manuel, the Emperor of the East, who was especially 
unfriendly to Conrad, so far reduced the strength of the Germans by cut- 
ting off their supplies, that they fell an easy prey to the Saracens among 
the mountains of Cappadocia. Conrad returned in despair to Constanti- 
nople. 

The troops of Louis, passing in the deep winter of 1148 to the banks 
of the Meander, gained a slight triumph over the Saracens. But this 
success was soon eclipsed by a decided check near Laodicea. When they 
found the gates of Attalia, where they h.id hoped to find a refuge, shut 
against them, the heroic army, lessening every day, struggled on, storm- 
beaten and famine- worn, to Antioch. The entry of the two monarchs 
into Jerusalem — Conrad had now joined Louis — was a gleam of bright 
promise, reviving the hope of the Crusaders. But their first undertaking, 
the siege of Damascus, proved a miserable failure, and the second Crusade 
closed in gloom. Nearly forty years elapsed before the third began. 



OF HISTORY. Iig 

THE THIRD CRUSADE. 
(1189-II92.) 

When the news came that Jerusalem had fallen before Saladin, the great 
Sultan of Egypt, and that the golden cross, which had glittered 
for eighty-eight years on the Mosque of Omar, marking its 1187 
transformation into a Christian church, had been trampled in A.n. 
the streets, Europe for the third time girt herself for war. 

First, from the Italian ports there sailed out a large fleet, thronged with 
eager soldiers, who at once upon their arrival proceeded to aid the Chris- 
tians in the siege of Acre, which had yielded to Saladin. 
' But a greater movement followed. The three great western princes took 
the Cross — Richard I. of England, Philip Augustus of France, and Frederic 
Barbarossa (Redbeard) of Germany. A tax, called Saladin 's tithe, was 
laid upon Christendom to meet the expenses of the war. As was usual in 
all the Crusades, complete absolution from sin was promised to every 
soldier who struck a blow at the infidel. 

While Richard and Philip were filling their purses and mustering their 
armies, Frederic, starting from Ratisbon, pushed by the usual 
land-route to Adrianople, crossed the Hellespont, and pierced 1189 
right through Asia Minor, routing the Turks, and conquering A.D. 
Iconium. But his career of victory was stayed in Cilicia, 
where he died, while bathing one summer day in the river Selef. A rem- 
nant of his army — some five thousand ragged and footsore men — reached 
the camp of the besiegers before Acre. 

The siege of that stronghold was pushed on in spite of terrific losses. 
For two long years a vague hope of aid from Europe upheld the hearts of 
the Christians. The Turkish garrison was renewed again and again, when- 
ever the sea was left open. Nine battles were fought under the shadow of 
Mount Carmel with changing success. Thousands on thousands of tho 
crusading soldiery laid down their lives before the ramparts ; but still tht 
camp was filled with new hosts, burning with martial fury. 

The armies of Richard and Philip, amounting together to one hundred thou- 
sand, were transported by sea to the Holy Land, the former sail- 
ing from Marseilles, the latter from Genoa. They spent the win- 119G 
ter together at Messina in Sicily, not, indeed, on the most friendly A.D. 
terms. Richard delayed, besides, at Cyprus, where he was 
married. He dethroned Isaac, king of that island, for treating some of 
his shipwrecked sailors badly. It was, therefore, nearly a year after their 
setting out that the royal warriors appeared before Acre ; Philip first, 
Richard shortly afterwards. New vigor stirred in the besiegers ; and 



I20 GREAT EVENTS 

Saladin must have trembled for his hold upon the key of Syria, when he 
saw the plain whitened with a new camp of many thousand tents. One 
glimpse of the great Saracen's character must not be passed by. Even at 
so great a crisis, this generous foe sent frequent presents of pears and 
snow, to cool the fever of which Richard and Philip lay sick in their tents. 
Ere long the broken ramparts of the city yielded to the Crusaders, and the 
sultan fell back towards the south. 

The story of the Crusades, and of this third one especially, has been 
colored with the gayest tints of romance ; and we are apt to be dazzled by 
a deceptive glare in reading of the noble achievements of the soldiers of 
the Cross. The truth is, that the crusading armies were filled with the 
worst ruffians in Europe. There were, no doubt, noble exceptions. But 
very few were inspired by motives of real piety. The hope of plunder 
and a reckless love of change were the mainsprings of the war. The 
Cross met the eye eveiywhere throughout the camp, on banners, shields, 
and surcoats, sparkling over tent-doors, and shapen into the hilts of swords ; 
but it was not in the hearts of the soldiery ; and this being so, it is no 
wonder that the worst vices were rampant among them, and that all shame 
was cast aside. 

Soon after the fall of Acre, Philip returned to Europe. Richard then 

pushed southward along the sea-coast, fighting his way for eleven days 

amid the unceasing rattle of the brass kettle-drums, that called up new 

hosts of Saracens to the front. He found Joppa and Ascalon dismantled. 

Next spring he advanced within twenty miles of Jerusalem ; but turned 

away from what most likely would have been the crowning achievement of 

the war. The sad havoc already made in his ranks, the dis- 

1192 content of his allies, and news from England of danger men- 

A.D. acing his crown, are assigned as reasons for this step. On his 

way home falling into the hands of the Duke of Austria, who 

had an old grudge against him, he lay in secret prisons for nearly two 

years. 

Richard's departure from Palestine was the signal for a peace which 
promised to be lasting; but the death of Saladin, in 1 193, gave anew 
turn to the history of the Holy Land. 

The rise of the Teutonic Order dates from the third Crusade, a few 
generous knights having joined to tend the sick and wounded in the 
camp before Acre. 



OF HISTORY. 121 

CHAPTER II. 

THE CRUSADEV — (Continued). 

Fourth Crnsade begins — Berytus taken — Siege of Thoron fails — Foulc[ue — Delay at Venice — 
Blind old Dandolo— Capture of Zara— Movement on Constantinople — The Siege — Baldwin 
made emperor — The Boy Crusade — Frederic II. of Germany — Concludes a trace— Crowns 
himself king— St. Louis— In Egypt— Dies in Tunis- Edward I. of England— The ruin of 
Acre. 

THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 
(1I95-II97.) 

The Emperor Henry VI., gaoler of Coeur de Lion, had his eye 
upon Sicily as a key to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire. To cloak 
his real design he organized a fourth Crusade. 

Reserving a body of forty thousand under his own command, to execute 
his secret schemes on Sicily, he divided the rest of his forces into two 
parts. One, crossing the Danube, marched to Constantinople, and sailed 
in Greek ships to Acre. The others, setting out from the Baltic ports, did 
not reach Palestine till some time later. 

The Syrian Christians, just beginning to taste the sweets of peace, at 
first looked coldly on their brethren, who came, sword in hand, from 
Europe. But a movement of the Saracens, before whom Joppa fell, scat- 
tered all thoughts of disunion. Banding together, the Christian soldiery 
waited only for their friends, who were making the long sea-passage, and 
then besieged Berytus (Beirout). The capture of this great city enriched 
the Crusaders, and set free nine thousand Christian prisoners, who had 
long lain in its dungeons. 

The arrival of a third army, despatched by Heniy, when he had suc- 
ceeded in his designs on Sicily, raised high hopes that Jerusalem would 
soon be freed from the Infidels. But the approach of winter delayed the 
great enterprise. 

The siege of Thoron, on the coast, was undertaken instead. German 
miners tunnelled through the rock on which it stood ; and the walls were 
shaking when the besieged sued for quarter. It was refused ; and with 
the courage of despair the defence began again. The tide turned. Rumors 
of an advancing Saracen host struck terror into the hearts of the Crusad- 
ers. In the dead of night their leader fled, and next day saw the whole 
army, scared by a storm of thunder and lightning, and fiercely hunted by 
their infidel foes, scattered in headlong flight on the way to Tyre. 

This was the miserable end of the fourth Crusade. Other operations 
might have been undertaken ; but the death of the Emperor Henry, 
whose gold had been the mainstay of the war, brought the adventurers 
home, to see what might be picked up on less distant fields. 

6 



122 GREAT EVENTS 

THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 
(1198-1204.) 

Popf Innocent III. sent forth letters to stir up a new Crusade. But 
these '.vould have had little influence, especially in France, which lay 
under an interdict, if they had not been backed by the simple eloquence 
of Foulque, curate of a little town on the Marne. At a great tournament 
he preached the crusade with such a trumpet-tongue, that the lists were 
deserted by the knights, M'ho thronged to take the badge of the Holy 
War. 

With the Doge of Venice, " the blind old Dandolo," a bargain was 

struck for ships, and Visnice was named as the place of muster. But, 

when the day of muster came, so few of the barons had arrived, that they 

were not able to raise the sum demanded for the hire of the 

1202 ships. In their distress they accepted the offer of the Doge, to 
A.D. free them from all claims, if they would retake for Venice the 

revolted city of Zara. It lay in Dalmatia, and had sought the 
protection of the Hungarian king. But in five days it was forced to yield 
to the arms of the Crusaders. 

Having once turned aside from the real object of the expedition, they 
easily took a second step of the same kind. Isaac, Emperor of the East, 
having been deposed and blinded by his brother Alexius, his son, another 
Alexius, came to the crusading chiefs, imploring help. Some were for 
sailing instantly tp Palestine ; but a stronger party resolved to grant tho 
aid. And so a magnificent fleet, sweeping down the Adriatic and up the 
^gean, anchored within sight of the glittering turrets of Constantinople. 

Fixing their camp at Scutari, on the Asiatic side, the Crusaders prepared 

to pass the rapid Bosphorus. The knights crossed in flat-bottomed boats, 

standing lance in hand beside their horses. The opposite shore was safely 

occupied ; and, at the same time, the Venetian galleys broke 

1203 the boom across the entrance of the harbor. And then the 
A.D. siege began. Ever foremost in the fight was the blind old 

Doge, giving life and spirit to every movement of the besieg- 
ers. For eleven days (July 7-18) there was a feeble resistance, until 
Alexius, the usurper, fled with all the gold he could lay his hands on. 

Isaac was restored to his throne ; but, a quarrel arising between the 
Crusaders and the Greeks, war began anew. A second siege of Con- 
stantinople ended in the complete triumph of the besiegers. Baldwin, 
Count of Flanders, was elected emperor over one-fourth of the eastern 
dominions, for Isaac and his son were both dead. The remaining shares- 
were divided between the republic of Venice and the barons of France. 



OF HISTORY. 123 

THE BOY CRUSADE. 

One of the strangest sights of the Middle Ages was the Boy Crusade ol 
1212. 

A shepherd-boy, Stephen of Vendome, gave out that God, in a vision, 
had bestowed on him bread, and had sent him with a letter to the King 
of France. Round him gathered thirty thousand children of about twelve 
years. Boy's were there, and girls in boys' clothes, on horseback and 
afoot. The tears and prayers of their parents could not turn them from 
their mad design. The strange flame spread through all France ; from 
castle and from hut the little ones fled to follow the car of Stephen. With 
wax candies in their hands, clad in pilgrim's dress, they moved, singing 
hymns, over the hot, dusty plains of Provence, upheld through all the toils 
and terrors of the way by the wild hope that the waters of the sea, drying 
up before them, would open a path to the Holy Land. Robbed by the 
way, they were yet more pitilessly cheated in Marseilles. 

Two merchants agreed to take them to Palestine, for the love of God, 
as the canting scoundrels said. The children set sail in seven ships. 
Two of these were wrecked, and all on board lost. The other five bore 
their precious freight to Egypt, where all were sold as slaves. It is some 
consolation to know that the rascal merchants were soon after hanged in 
Sicily. 

About the same time two armies of children, gathering in Germany, 
crossed the Alps to Genoa and Lombardy, where they were scattered and 
lost, very many of these, too, falling into the cruel hands of slave-dealer* 

THE SIXTH CRUSADE. 
(1227-I229.) 

The next great movement, passing over the attack on Damietta in 
I2ig, where the Christians suffered heavily, was headed by the Emperor 
Frederic II. 

Urged by Pope Gregory IX., the emperor embarked for the Holy Land ; 
but discontent among his troops, or, if we are to believe some, a severe fit 
of sickness, turned him back, after he had been at sea only three 
days. The furious pope excommunicated him ; but next year, 1228 
in spite of the pontiff's continued ill-temper, he set sail for A.D. 
Palestine, induced chiefly by the offered alliance of the Sultan 
ol Egypt. 

The wrath of the pope, following him to Palestine, estranged from hiin 
all the clergy of that land. Nevertheless, he followed up his plans with 
consummate skill, and won from his friend, Malek Kamil, the Sultan, by 



I 24 GREA T E VENTS 

fair words and good fellowship, what so much blood had been spillei to 
gain. A truce for ten years was made between the princes. 
1229 Jen.salem, Bethlehem, and all the towns from Joppa to 
A.D. Ptolemais were given up to Frederic, almost the only stipula- 
tion being that the Mosque of Omar should remain open to 
Moslem worshippers. This gaining of the object for which the Crusaders 
had striven from the first, ought to have filled Christendom with joy ; bui 
a sullen silence hung upon the clergy. And the excommunicated prince, 
entering Jerusalem in triumph with his Teutonic knights, was forced, for 
want of a priest to perform the ceremony, to place the crown on his head 
with his own hands. His reign in the East was short, for the schemes of 
the unforgiving pope against his empire in Europe led him to return in 
haste to Italy. 

THE SEVENTH CRUSADE. 
Louis IX. of France, one of the few monarchs honored with the title of 
Saint, led the seventh Crusade. Jerusalem had again become the prey of 
the infidels. As he left the French shore with a large force, the notes of a 
sacred anthem rose from the ships. 

After spending the winter at Cyprus, where his army wasted their 
strength in riotous living, he anchored before Damietta late in spring. 
Leaping, sword in hand, into the sea, amid a deadly rain of arrows, the 
brave king led the way to the shore. The panic-struck Moslems left 
Damietta to its fate. 

But pestilence began to thin the ranks of the Crusaders ; and, when 
Louis moved inland to Mansourah, a sudden rally of the flying foe met his 
straggling files. The death of his brother and the flower of his army 
made his dearly-bought victoiy worse than a defeat. A retreat to Dami- 
etta was resolved on ; but at the village of Minieh, Louis, who 
1250 might have escaped, but nobly refused to leave his broken 
A.D. force, was made prisoner. Nor was he released until he 
agreed to restore Damietta, and to pay four hundred thousand 
golden pieces. He lingered at Acre for four years longer, until the death 
of his mother obliged him to return to France. 

THE EIGHTH AND LAST CRUSADE. 
(1270-1272.) 
Sixteen years later, a Crusade left France, bound, not for Palestine, but 
for Africa — the grand object of St. Louis being to convert the Prince of 
Tunis with the sword. 

The Moslem troops gave way ; but a deadlier foe descended upon the 
French host, when plague, made worse by the unburied corpses, began 
its ravages. Among others, the king sickened and died. 



OF HISTORY. 12 



Edwai i of England, afterwards Edward I., was the last of the crusading 
princes. Arriving in Africa to find Louis dead, he lost no time in leading 
his little force to the Holy I-and. But the glory of the war was past. A 
march into Phoenicia, and a massacre of the Moslems at Nazareth, were 
almost his only doings. His headquarters were at Acre. The stab of a 
poisoned dagger— we are told that his wife saved him by sucking the 
wound — warned him to leave the land ; and, after having spent in all 
some eighteen months of aimless enterprise, he returned to England to 
conquer Wales and vex Scotland. 

Acre, which, after the loss of Jerusalem, was the centre of the European 
power in the East, grew to be a disgrace to the name of Christianity. But 
its lust and riot were buried in its ruins, when, after a siege of 
thirty-three days, the heavy engines of Sultan Khalil pounded 1291 
its strong defences to dust, and opened the way for the Mame- A.D. 
luke stormers. Sixty thousand Christians were slain or en- 
slaved ; and of the few who escaped to their ships, the greater part 
perished in the waves before they could reach the friendly coast of 
Cyprus. 

CHRISTIAN EINOS OF JERUSALEM. 

A.D. 

Godfrey of Boulogne 1099 

Baldwin I iioo 

Baldwin II 1118 

FuLK OF Anjou. . .• 1131 

Baldwin III 1144 

Amauri 1162 

Baldwin IV 1174 

Sibyl — then his son 

Baldwin V 1185 

Guy de Lusignan 1186 

Henry of Champagne 1192 

Amauri de Lusignan •. 1197 

Jeanne de Brienne 1209 

Ekperor Frederic II 12:9-39 



126 GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ALBIGENSES. 

Central Point: THE BATTLE OF MURET, 1213 A.D. 

Innocent HI— The Albigenses— Their doctrines and name— Outbreak of war— Dominic Gnz 
man— Capture of Beziers— Of Carcassonne— The Castle of Minerva— Of La Vaur— Battle 
of Muret— Prince Louis— Death of Montfort— Peace of Paris- Political aim of the Crusade. 

The Papacy reached its noonday under Innocent III., who wore the 
tiara from 1198 to 1216, He it was who brought John to lay the crown 
of England at the foot of the papal chair. But we have here to speak 
briefly of his dealings with a nobler race than such as John — the Albi- 
genses of southern France. 

Among the vines of Languedoc dwelt a people who spoke the rich 
musical Proven9al, in which the troubadours sang of love and war. This 
intelligent and accomplished race looked with contempt on the vices of 
their clergy, as well they might, for their bishops were roues of high rank, 
and their curates mere ignc^fant hinds, taken from the trencher or the 
plough. Hungering after a deeper teaching and a holier discipline than 
was common in their days, they scorned the dry husks of Rome ; and 
drawing aside from the established pale, formed themselves into a separate 
religious society, in which they strove to realize on earth the divine ideal 
of the Church, as a holy nation, a peculiar people, a brotherhood of 
saints. 

With some peculiar tenets of their own, closely resembling those of the 
ancient Manichees, and which subjected them, not altogether without 
ground, to the charge of a heretical tendency, they were yet in some 
points faithful witnesses for the truth, and pioneers of that great Reforma- 
tion struggle that was yet to come. In an age of rampant superstition 
and lifeless formalism, they testified, both by word and deed, for the 
spirituality of religion, and of the worship of God ; and even their errors 
were probably in large measure only an excessive reaction against the pre- 
vailing evils of the times. They denied the doctrine of the real corporeal 
presence. They denounced all images as idols. Their worship was 
simple and unadorned ; and sumptuous ceremonial and gorgeous priestly 
vestnrents were alike eschewed. 

Th e holy volume lay open on the table, which, in their places of wor- 
ship, supplanted the pompous altar ; and the simple preaching of the 
word formed the most prominent feature of the service. They abounded 
in mortifications and fastings, and were distinguished, even by the con- 
fession of enemies, by a strictness of life which was then rare, and which 



OF HISTORY. 127 

went the length even of an ascetic severity. They received the name 
Albigeois, or Albigenses,* from the town of Albi. They have been often 
classed, and, save for the serious heretical leaven above referred to, not 
unworthily, with the Waldenses, who cherished the truths of Christianity 
m singular simplicity and purity during long ages of darkness, among the 
valleys of Piedmont. 

Innocent, looking jealously upon these men, sent monks to 1208 
watch them. One of these legates was stabbed to death by a a.d. 
retainer of Raymond, Count of Toulouse. And then the war 
blazed out. 

Dominic Guzman, a Spanish monk, took the lead in stirring up this 
Crusade. In his dealings with the poor villagers of Languedoc, we trace 
the first sign of that terrible engine of the Romish Church, the Inquisi- 
tion, which began its deadly working formally in 1223 under Gregory IX.,. 
and continued to scorch Italy and Spain with its baleful fires until the 
close of the eighteenth century. 

Wearing a cross on the breast instead of the shoulder, the Crusaders, 
encouraged by the most unbounded promises of absolution from sin, 
moved with joy from all parts of France to a field of plunder and blood- 
shed so near and so promising. The main body of the amiy descended 
the valley of the Rhone, entering Languedoc by the Mediterranean shore. 
Tumultuous mobs, armed with clubs and scythes, followed in their track. 

When he saw the terrors of war approaching, the Count of Toulouse 
cringing to the legate, underwent sore humiliation to prove his penitence. 
But his nephew, young Raymond Roger, showed a bolder front. Divid- 
ing his forces between his strongest cities, Beziers and Carcassonne, this 
young noble withdrew to the latter to await the attack. The citizens of 
Beziers made a hot dash upon the besiegers as they were mark- 
ing out a camp. But an overwhelming force driving back the 1209 
sortie, pressed in through the open gates, and remained mas- A.D. 
ters of the city. And then began a terrific scene of blood. 
Arnold Amalric, the legate, was asked by some officers how they were to 
know the heretics from the true sons of Rome. Satan might be proud of 
his reply. " Kill them all," said he, " the Lord will know well those who 
are his." Sixty thousand were slain, and the town was burned to ashes. 

Carcassonne held out until the water began to fail. The garrison 
escaped by an underground passage, nine miles long. Raymond Roger, 
sui rendering, died in prison within three months ; and his territories were 



♦ They belonged properly to the sect of the " Caihari" or "the pure," exten- 
Bively scattered over the whole of Europe during the eleventh, twelflh, and 
thirteenth centuries. 



128 GREAT EVENTS 

bestowed on Simon de Montfort, Earl of I>ei';ester, who henceforward was 
the great captain of the war. 

In the summer of 1210 Montfort laid siege to the Castle of Minerva. 

near Narbonne, which, perched on a steep crag, was looked upon as the 

strongest place in the land. For seven weeks the Albigenses held out ; 

but then their cisterns ran dry. Led to hope that their lives 

1210 would be spared, they gave up the castle. But they soon 
A.D. found that, if they wished to live, they must confess the doc- 
trines of Rome to be true. A heap of dry wood, filling the 

courtyard, was set on fire, and more than one hundred and forty men and 
women leapt willingly into the flames rather than deny their faith. 

The whole of that land of deep-green valleys was then ravaged by 
Montfort and his pilgrims, as the persecuting soldiery were called. As 
another specimen of the tender mercies of this trusty son of Rome, take 
the story of La Vaur. 

This castle, lying fifteen miles from Toulouse, had long opened its 

hospitable gates to those Albigenses who were driven from their homes 

by the flames. It was looked on by the Crusaders as a very nest of 

heresy. Five thousand men of Toulouse, banded together as 

1211 the White Company, advanced to the siege. Strange and ter- 
A.D. rible engines of war fronted the walls. One of them was the 

cai — a mediaeval form of the old battering-ram. It was a 
great wooden tower, covered with sheepskin, from whose side a heavy 
beam, studded with iron claws, struck and tore at the masonry till a 
breach was made. 

At first Montfort could not reach the wall, for as fast as he filled up the 
ditch the garrison cleared away the earth. At length, however, dislodg- 
ing them from their subterranean passages with fire, he got the cat to 
work, and made a practicable breach. As the knights clambered up the 
ruined wall, the priests, clad in full robes, chanted a hymn of joy. When 
the sword and the gallows had done their deadly work, a vast crowd of 
the captives were burned alive. 

Raymond, Count of Toulouse, at last plucked up heart to face 

1213 the invaders. An alliance was formed between the Albigen- 

A.D. ses and Pedro, King of Aragon. At Muret, nine miles from 

Toulouse, a battle was fought, in which Don. Pedro was slain, 

and the victory rested with Montfort. The iron-clad knights of northern 

France 'vere as yet more than a match for the light horse of Spain and 

the defenceless infantry of the Pyrenees. 

This crushing blow struck terror into the hearts of the Albigenses. The 
war seemed to be over, and the Crusaders went home. 

In 1215 we find Prince Louis, son of Philip Augustus, taking the Cross 



OF HISTOR Y. 1 29 

against the heretics. The time allotted for the pilgrimage was six weeks, 
during which the chief pleasures were to be living at discretion in Lan- 
guedoc, pillaging houses and castles, and singing the hymn, " Veni 
Creator," round the burning heretics. But for that time, at least, the 
pleasant programme was not fulfilled, for Montfort took good care to get 
Louis as quickly and quietly as possible out of the land which he had 
conquered for himself. Toulouse and Narbonne were the two capitals 
of Montfort's rule. 

The citizens of the former revolted, inspired with new cour- 1218 
age on the return of Count Raymond. In the attempt to re- A.D. 
take the city, Simon de Montfort was killed by the blow of a 
great stone on the head. 

Still the war continued with the same terrible bloodshed, under the 
same pretence of religious zeal. But the Albigenses grew weaker. Ray- 
mond VI. died in 1222, worn out by care and age. Seven 
years later, his son, Raymond VII., yielded up all his territory 1229 
to the King of France, receiving back a part to be held as a A.D. 
fief. This arrangement was called the Peace of Paris. Some 
vain struggles followed, for the spirit of the Albigenses was yet alive, 
though sorely crushed. However, the final ratification of the peace in 
1242 completed the conquest of Languedoc. 

This was not only a religious persecution, but had a distinct political 
aim. Guizot well describes it as the re-establishment of the feudal system 
in the south of France, when an attempt had been made to organize 
society there on democratic principles. So completely was the nationality 
of the Albigenses trampled out, that their beautiful tongue — the Langue 
tTOc, the sweet provenqal of the troubadour ballads — perished forever, aa 
a distinct speech, from among the tongues of Europe. 

THE CAPET KINGS OP FRANCE. 

A.D. 

Hugh Capet 987 

Robert II. (the Sage) 996 

Henry 1 1031 

Philip 1 1060 

Louis VI. (le Gros) 1108 

Louis VII. (the Young) 1137 

Philip II. (Augustus) 1180 

Louis VIII. (Coeur de Lion) 1223 

Louis IX. (St. Louis) 1226 

Philip III. (the Hardy) 1270 

Philip IV. (the Fair) 1285 

6* 



,30 GREAT EVENTS 

A.D. 

Louis X. (Hutin) 1314 

ToHN 1316 

Philip V. (the Long) 1316 

Charles IV. (the Handsome) 1322 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONQUEST OF PRUSSIA BY THE TEUTONIC ORDER. 
Central Point : THE SEAT OF THE ORDER FIXED AT MARIENBURG, 1309 A.D. 

The Bornssi — Occupation of Cnlm— The war — Removal to Marienbnrg — German colonists- 
Territory of the order — The grand masters — Luxury and vice— Battle of Tanneuherg. 

One of the most remarkable achievements during the heyday of chivalry 
was the conquest of Prussia by the few thousand knights of the Teutonic 
Order, which, it will be remembered, originated during the third Crusade. 
Among the heaths and marshes and pine-forests, which bordered the 
Baltic on the south and east, the Borussi, fiercest, perhaps, of all the Scla- 
vonic tribes, had long maintained themselves. They wore furs and coarse 
linen ; ate horseflesh and drank mare's milk. The sun, moon, and stars 
were their gods ; and when a chief died, his wives, slaves, arms, and 
horses were burned with his corpse. Their javelins and lances baffled 
every attempt to plant Christianity among them. They were deadly and 
dangerous foes of the Polish nation, whose vigorous efforts to subdue them 
had been all in vain for nearly four hundred years. 

The fifth crusade was over, and the sixth had not yet begun. During 
this lull in the fighting world, the Teutonic knights, just home from the 
Holy Land, accepted the invitation of a Polish duke to occupy Culm on 
•■he Vistula, and turn their arms against these fierce heathen. 

Fixing their head-quarters by the Vistula, first at Culm, then 
1228 at Thorn, which was built by themselves in 1231, the knights 
to commenced a war of fifty-three years, which ended in the com- 
1281 plete overthrow of the Borussi or Prussians. The Sword 
A.D. Knights of Livonia joined the banner of the Teutonic Order 
early in the war. 
About thirty years after the conquest of the land the grand master re- 
moved the seat of the order from Venice to Marienburg, thus completing 
the settlement of these new lords upon Prussian soil. 

Some of the native Prussian chiefs were ennobled ; but the mass of the 
people sank into serfdom. Feudal castles studded the conquered land ; 
and to fill the place of the thousands who had perished in the terrible 
war German colonists were drafted in. The German tongue began to be 



OF HISTORY. 131 

freely spoken, and a spirit of enterprise pervaded the land. The Prus- 
sians turned to their cattle-rearing with new zeal. Commerce flourished 
along the Baltic and on the banks of the Vistula. Neat German farms 
smiled everywhere around. The Baltic supplied profitable stores of fish ; 
and the amber, gathered on the shore, drew wealth into the coffers of the 
state. 

Unbroken, except by a wedge of Lithuania, which, north of the Nie- 
men, touched the sea with its point, the territory of the Teutonic Order 
stretched along the Baltic from a good distance west of the Vistula to the 
southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. Running inland as far as Thorn, 
it included eastern and part of western Prussia, with Courland, Livonia, 
and Esthonia, three provinces of modern Russia. The islands of Dago 
and Gothland were also within the limit. The chief cities were Marien- 
burg, Konigsburg, Gdansk or Dantzic. In the first of these, which was 
the capital of the order from 1309 to their fall in 1466, the grand old 
Gothic ruins of their palace — das Deutsche haus — still mark the greatness 
of a pride long since crumbled into dust. 

The grand masters lived in most magnificent state. One of them, 
gathering an army on the banks of the Niemen to invade Lithuania, enter- 
tained his knights at a grand banquet. Richly-dressed servants held can- 
opies of cloth of gold over each knight as he sat at table ; and, when the 
thirty courses of the banquet had come and gone, the guests were per- 
mitted to carry away the golden plate and cup they had just been using. 
Such luxury began to sap the prosperity of these soldier-monks. Vices, 
at first hidden within castle-walls, began to be practised more openly with 
little shame. With blacker vice there grew up greater arrogance. They 
lashed their Prussian serfs and the German settlers with such merciless 
severity, that the trampled races, rising in revolt, called in 
the aid of the gallant Poles. On one fearful field — Tannen- 1410 
berg, in southern Prussia — the Grand Master Ulric died with A.D. 
most of his knights, and 30,000 meaner soldiers. 

This blow utterly broke the power of the order. And, half a century 
later we find the Teutonic knights, shorn of their old splendor, sink into 
nothingness as the vassals of the Polish crown. 



132 GREAT EVENTS 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SWISS WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 
Central Points : BATTLE OF MORGARTEN, 1315 A.D. ; BATTLE OF SEMPACH, 1386 A.D, 

Old Helvetia— Rodolph of Hapsbnrg— Appointment of bailiffs— The meadow of Rutli— Tell and 
the apple— Gassier slain — The outbreak — Battle of Morgarten — The name Switzerland— 
The eight cantons — Battle of Sempach— Battle of Nefels— The Sempach Convention. 

Early in the Christian era, Helvetia, which was peopled chiefly by 
Gallic tribes, formed a part of the Roman Empire. Then, overrun by 
various barbarous races, it was included in the kingdom of Burgundy the 
Less, and as such fell under the rule of Charlemagne. After his death it 
was annexed to the Romano-Germanic Empire. Conspicuous among the 
many small sovereignties and states, into which it was broken, even while 
owning a sort of dependence on the empire, were the Forest Cantons of 
Schweitz, Uri, and Underwalden, clustered round the southern shore of 
I^ake Lucerne. 

In 1273 Count Rodolph of Hapsburg (Hawk's Castle on the Aar in 
north Switzerland) was elected King of the Romans, or Emperor of 
Germany. He is distinguished in history as the founder of the Imperial 
House of Austria. Lord of many lands and towns in Switzerland, he 
held besides, by the free choice of the foresters themselves, the advocacy 
or protectorship of the Forest States. He did not allow his elevation to 
the imperial throne to sever the ties which bound him to the mountain- 
land. He spent much time among the Swiss ; and the many benefits and 
enlarged privileges they received from him were repaid on their part by 
unbroken affection and unbounded trust. 

But when, in 1298, his son Albert, Duke of Austria — which had been 
taken by Rodolph from Bohemia — was made emperor, a gloom fell upon 
Switzerland. It soon became clear that his design was to make himself 
despotic master of all the land. The Forest Cantons were placed under 
two bailiffs or governors, Gessler and Beringer, whose insolent tyranny 
grew intolerable. 

Three of the oppressed foresters, Walter Fiirst, Arnold von Melchthal, 

and Werner Stauffacher, met to plan the deliverance of their coun.tr}'. 

On a November night, in the meadow of Rutli by Lake Lu- 

1307 cerne, these three patriots, in the presence of thirty tried 

A.D. friends, swore, beneath the starry sky, to die, if need were, in 

defence of their freedom. And all the thirty joining in the 

solemn vow, the coming New Year's night was fixed for striking the first 

blow 



OF HISTORY. 133 

Meanwhile, Gessler, the Austrian bailiff, was slain by one of the thirty, 
William Tell, a native of Burglen, near Altorf, and famous over all the 
country for his skill with the cross-bow. The romantic story, upon 
which, however, some doubt has been cast by modern historians, runs 
thus : — 

Gessler, to try the temper of the Swiss, set up the ducal hat of Austria 
on a pole, in the market-place of Altorf, and commanded that all who 
passed it by should bow in homage. Tell, passing one day with his little 
son, made no sign of reverence. He was at once dragged before Gessler, 
who doomed him to die, unless with a bolt from his cross-bow he could 
it an apple placed on his son's head. The boy was bound, and the 
apple balanced. Tell, led a long way off, aiming for some breathless 
seconds, cleft the little fruit to the core. But, while shouts of joy were 
ringing from the gathered crowd, Gessler saw that Tell had a second 
arrow, which he had somehow contrived to hide while choosing one for 
his trying shot. " Why," cried the bailiff, " hast thou that second arrow ? " 
And the bold answer was, " For thee, if the first had struck my child." 

In a violent rage, Gessler then ordered Tell to be chained, and carried 
across the lake to the prison of Kussnacht. A storm arising when they 
were half way over, huge waves threatened to swamp the boat. By order 
of the governor, Tell, whose knowledge of the lake was remarkable, was 
unchained and placed at the rudder. Resolved on a bold dash for liberty, 
he steered for a rocky shelf which jutted into the waters, sprang ashore, 
and was soon lost among the mountain glens. And some time after, 
hiding in a woody pass within a short distance of Kussnacht, he shot the 
tyrant Gessler dead with his unerring cross-bow. 

Thus for a few hours Tell shone out in the story of the world with a 
lustre that has never since grown dim. Darkness rests on his after-life. 
We know nothing more than that he fought in the great battle of Morgar- 
ten, and that in 1350 he was drowned in a flooded river. 

The dawn of 1308 saw the foresters in arms. The Austrian castles 
were seized. The Alps were all alight with bonfires. Albert, hurriedly 
gathering an army, was advancing to crush the rising, when he was assas- 
sinated at the Reuss by his nephew, Duke John of Suabia. To their last- 
ing honor, be it said, that the three revolted cantons refused to shelter the 
murderer, who lived and died miserably in Italy. 

Three great battles — Morgarten, Sempach, and Nefels — mark the steps 
by which the brave Swiss achieved their independence. 

Seven years after Albert's death, his son, Duke Leopold of Austria, re- 
solving to pierce the mountains of Schweitz and punish the audacious 
herdsmen, left Zug with an army of 15,000 men, carrying great coils of 
rope to hang his prisoners. The pass of Morgarten, which ran for three 



134 GREAT EVENTS 

miles betvveen the steep rocks of Mount Sattel and the little Lake Egeri, 
was the only way by which heavy cavalry could pass into the 
Nov. 16j doomed canton. With the dawn of a November morning, as 
1315 the sun shone red through a frosty fog, the Austrians entered 
A.D. the pass — a host of steel-clad knights in front, and the foot- 
men following in close order. Their advance was known and 
prepared for. 

Fourteen hundred herdsmen, who had commended their cause and 
themselves to the God of battles, lined the rocky heights. Fifty exiles 
from Schweitz, burning to regain an honored place among their country- 
men, gathered on a jutting crag that overhung the entrance of the defile, 
and when the Austrians were well in the trap, hurled down great rocks 
and beams of wood upon the close-packed ranks. Amid the confusion, 
which was increased by the fog, the Swiss rushed from the heights, and 
with their halberts and iron-shod clubs beat down the Austrian knights in 
crowds. Horses plunged into the lake ; many knights fell back upon the 
footmen, trampling them to death. It was a woful day for Austria, and 
for chivalry, when the steel cuirass and the knightly lance went down be- 
fore the pikes and clubs of a few untrained footmen. Duke Leopold 
scarcely saved himself by a headlong flight over the mountains to Winter- 
thur, where he arrived late in the evening, a haggard, beaten man. 

The valor of the Schweitzers was so remarkable in this battle, and 
throughout the great future struggle, that the name of their canton was 
extended to the whole country, henceforth named Switzerland. 

The three cantons renewed their solemn league of mutual defence. 

Lucerne joined the Confederation in 1335 , Zurich and Zug in 1351 ; 

Glarus and Berne soon followed, thus completing the list of the eight 

ancient cantons of the infant Republic. A treaty, ratified at 

1353 Lucerne, is remarkable as being a distinct acknowledgment on 

A.D. the part of Austria that the Swiss had triumphed, and were 

free. The ceaseless industry and steady economy of the 

mountaineers proved them worthy- of the freedom they had so bravely 

won. 

But their task was not yet done. Bent on crushing the Confederation 

with one terrible blow, Leopold, Duke of Suabia, one of the Hapsburg 

line, marched from Baden toward Lucerne. He found his way 

July 9, barred at Sempach by 1,300 men, who held the wooded heights 

1386 round the lake. The Austrian force consisted of 4,000 horse, 

A.D. and 1,400 foot. At the hastily-summoned council the arrogant 

nobles were loud in their cry that the peasant rabble should be 

crushed at once, without waiting for the rest of the army. And rashly 

the duke gave orders for the fight. As the broken mountain-ground was 



OF HISTORY. 



135 



unfit for cavalry movements, the knights, dismounting, formed a solid mass 
of steel, blazing in the hot harvest sun. 

A short prayer, and the Swiss were formed for the charge. On they 
came, the gallant mountain men, some with boards on their left arms in- 
stead of shields. But the iron wall stood fast, with its bristling fence un- 
broken ; sixty of their little band lay bleeding on the earth ; the wings of 
the Austrian line were curving round to hem them in a fatal ring, when 
Arnold von Winkelried, a knight of Underwalden, dashing with open 
arms on the Austrian lances, swept together as many as he could reach, 
and, as they pierced his brave breast, bore their points with him to the 
ground. Like lightning the Swiss were through the gap ; the Austrian 
line was broken ; all was rout and dismay. Two thousand knights perished 
on the field. Duke Leopold himself died while gallantly defending the 
torn and bloody banner of Austria. 

This brilliant success was followed, two years later, by another at Ne- 
fels, in which 6,000 Austrians were scattered by a handful of Swiss. Here, 
as at Morgarten, rocks flung from the heights caused the first disorder in 
the Austrian lines. 

At the diet of Zurich, held in 1393, a general law-martial, called the 
Sempach Convention, was framed to bind the eight cantons together in 
firmer league. It enacted that it was the duty of every true Switzer " to 
avoid unnecessary feuds, but where a war was unavoidable, to unite cor- 
dially and loyally together ; not to flee in any battle before the contest 
should be decided, even if wounded, but to remain masters of the field ; 
not to attempt pillage before the general had sanctioned it ; and to spare 
tihurches, convents, and defenceless females." 

So Switzerland shook off the yoke of Austria ; and never since, but 
once, when for a time Napoleon laid his giant grasp upon her, has the 
liberty won at Morgarten and Sempach been imperilled. 

GERMAN EMPERORS OF THE HOUSES OP HAPSBURG, LUXEMBURG, AND 
BAVARIA. 

• A.D. 

RoDOLPH (Count of Hapsburg) 1273 

Interregnum 1291 

Adolphus (Count of Nassau) 1292 

Albert (Duke of Austria) 1298 

Henry VII. of Luxemburg 1308 

Interregnum 1313 

Louis IV. (of Bavaria). 

" 1314 



\ 



Frederic III. (of Austria), reigning rivals , 

Louis, alone 1330 

Charles IV. (of Luxemburg) 1347 



136 GREAT EVENTS 

Wenceslas (King of Bohemia, 137S 

Frederic (Duke of Brunswick) 1400 

Rupert (Count Palatine of the Rhine) 1400 

Jossus (Marquis of Moravia) 1410 

SiGlSMUND (King of Hungary) 1410 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHIVALRY. 

Origin of cMvaby— Three grades— The page— The squire— His chief duties— Creation of a 
knight— Chain mail— Plate armor— Picture of a knight— Overweighted— The tournament 
—The three elements of chivalry— Battle of Courtrai— Swiss infantry— Gunpowder and 
guns— The last knights— Literature of chivalry— The gentleman. 

The life of the Middle Ages is deeply colored with the brilliant hues 
of chivalry. There the knight is the central figure — the model of medias- 
val art — the hero of medieval literature — foremost in every court-revel 
and greenwood sport, in the glittering tilt-yard and the dusty battle-field. 

The origin of chivalry cannot be marked by any distinct date. While 
the Caisars ruled in Rome, the germs of the system were alive amid the 
German forests. Of this Tacitus gives us a glimpse, when he wriies, 
" that the noblest youths were not ashamed to be numbered among the 
faithful companions of a celebrated leader, to whom they devoted their 
arms and their sei-vice." Silently, but surely, the system grew, amid the 
warring waves which swept over Europe after the fall of the WestCiU 
Empire. In the days of Charlemagne it received a powerful impuLe. 
Then the caballarii or horsemen got a separate summons to serve in ttie 
army. But chivalry ripened to its fullest growth during the two centuries 
of the Crusades. 

The young aspirant served in two subordinate grades before he received 
his spurs. First a page, and then a squire, he became at last a knight. 

A boy, destined for military life, was sent at seven or eight years of age 
to the castle of some noble distinguished in war. There, called a page or 
varlet, he was at first set to attend the ladies of the mansion, to run their 
messages, to follow them in their walks, or to accompany them when they 
rode out hunting or hawking. In return for these services, -which he was 
obliged to render with all humility and courtesy, he received instruction 
in the use of light weapons, in music, chess, and the chief doctrines of 
religioti. For these last, indeed, he was oftener indebted to the kindness 
of his 'ady than to the zeal of the priest. 

The page was made a squire at the age of thirteen or fourteen. His 



OF HISTORY. 



37 



father ai-d mother, bearing tapers in their hands, brought him before the 
altar, where the priest, with words of prayer and blessing, gave him a 
sword and belt. The introduction of religious sanction into the cere- 
monies of chivalry — which, however, does not appear till after the time of 
Charlemagne — gave the system its greatest strength. In one sense, in- 
deed, and that the literal, chivalry may be called the religion of the 
Middle Ages, for its influence kept down to some extent the growth of 
barbarous vices, giving a gentler and softer tone to social intercourse. 

The page was the attendant of the ladies ; but the squire served the 
men. Every squire — for in a great household there were many — had his 
own special work to do. One, the body-squire, was the personal attend- 
ant of his lord ; another, the squire-trenchant, bore the napkins and bread 
at meal-time, and carved the chief dishes ; a third looked after the horses, 
and others kept the keys of the cellar and the pantry. When the meal 
was over, the squires prepared the hall for dancing, and through the even- 
ing their time was fully taken up in handing round sweetmeats and spiced 
wine during the pauses in the pastime. The squires, too, were often 
called on to add to the pleasures of the evening with music and song. 

These duties, however, wei-e secondary to the more important work 
which lay before the squire, when the dangers of the hunting-field and 
the constant practice of military sports had strengthened his thews and 
quickened his eye. His great duty was to follow his lord to the battle or 
the tournament, leading the war-horse. On the high-peaked saddle was 
piled the armor of the knight, who, lightly dressed, rode before on a hack. 
When the hour of battle came, he arrayed his master in full armor, rivet- 
ting the plates with a skill which it had taken much time and pains to 
gain. During the fight he kept behind his lord, handed a fresh lance, led 
in a horse if his lord was dismounted, dashed to the rescue if he saw him 
hard pressed, and often bore him bleeding to a place of safety. Such 
were a squire's dutie« until he reached the age of twenty-one. 

The change from squirehood to knighthood was marked with much re- 
ligious pomp. Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide were the chief seasons 
for the creation of new knights. Having fasted and confessed all his sins, 
the candidate passed a night in prayer and watching. Then, having 
bathed, he was dressed in new robes — an underkirtle, a silk or linen vest 
embroidered with gold, a collar of leather, and over all the coat of arms. 
Proceeding to the church, he handed his sword to the priest. 

A pray«r was said ; a vow to defend churches, widows, and orphans, 
and to fight for the faithful against all pagans, was taken ; another prayer, 
and a part of the 44th Psalm was sung. The prince who was to confer 
the distinction then put the usual questions as to the motives of the can- 
didate in seeking to be made a knight, and the final oath being taken, the 



1 3 8 GREA T E VENTS 

sword, now consecrated by the priest, was handed to the attendants. The 
baldric — a belt of white leather and gold — was slung round the candidate, 
and his golden spurs were buckled on. The prince, then drawing the 
sword, completed the ceremony with a blow of its flat on the neck, thus 
dubbing the candidate squire a knight in the name of the Trinity. A 
box on the ear sometimes took the place of the sword-stroke. 

The dress and equipment of the knight varied much at different periods. 
The Roman cavalry being clad in mail, made of metal scales sewed on a 
leather garment, the Goths, Alans, and other barbarous tribes began to 
wear the same. But when the Moslem horsemen, in later times, met the 
troops of the West, this Roman mail was exchanged for the Saracen chain 
armor, formed of interlinked rings of steel. The heroes of the first Cru- 
sade wore this chain-mail, of which the great advantage was, that it al- 
lowed freer movement of the limbs. A great clumsy hauberk or tunic of 
steel rings hung to their knees. The head, too, was protected by a hood 
or cowl of chain-mail, over which was worn a low flat cap of steel. Mit- 
tens covered the hands, and pointed shoes of ma,il the feet. Their long 
iron spurs had no rowels. The clumsy sombreness of the whole equip- 
ment was hardly relieved by the bright colors of the device, shining on 
the three-pointed shield, which hung over the breast, or by the °mbroidery 
of the surcoat, with its ermine lining, which was worn over the hauberk. 
In such attire Godfrey and Tancred fought. 

The horses were at first quite unprotected. But when at Dorylseum 
and other early battles of the Crusaders, the Turkish arrows unhorsed the 
knights by thousands, and slew many of them, in spite of their mailed 
hauberks, it became the custom to sheathe the horses in complete armor. 
And during the fourteenth century the chain-mail of the early knights 
was exchanged for armor formed of overlapping metal plates, which was 
found more serviceable in resisting pointed missiles. 

The knight, as he appears in the hey-day of chivalry, glittering in his 
costly armor of steel inlaid with gold, with plume and crest and vizored 
helmet, wearing gauntlets instead of the old chain cuffs, his lance and 
mace, axe and sword and dagger all ready for the fray, presents a splendid 
and romantic figure, too well known to need fuller description. His robe 
of peace was of silk or velvet ; on great occasions he wore a long scarlet 
cloak doubled with ermine, and a massy gold signet-ring, like that worn 
by bishops, glittered on his finger. 

But this splendid warrior soon became of little use in the field. When 
it was found that the weight of a mass of iron-clad men and horses in full 
charge bore down everything before it, to increase the weight heavier 
armor was used, until both knight and horse were locked up in a little 
fortress of steel, — safe, indeed, from most missiles, but very harmless to an 



OF HISTORY. 



^19 



active, light-armed foe. Those great suits of armor, at which we gaze 
with wonder in museums and armories, belong to the decline of chivalry ; 
and when we think of the herculean frames that must have borne them, 
we should not forget that it was no uncommon thing for knights to be so 
lamed in their shoulders with the weight of such armor, as to be unfit for 
active service at the early age of thirty-five. 

The tournament has been well called the link which united the peaceful 
to the warlike life of the knight. They were first held in France, as the 
French origin of the name seems to show. England and Germany soon 
followed the example of their neighbors. The lists, in which the encoun- 
ters took place, were roped or railed off in an oval form, generally be- 
tween the city and a wood. The open spaces at each end were filled 
with stalls and galleries for the ladies and the noble spectators. 

The tilting was generally with lances, on the points of which were fixed 
pieces of wood, called rockets ; and the great object with each knight was 
to unhorse his antagonist. When the heralds cried, " Laissez alter" off 
they dashed from opposite ends of the lists, and met in the centre. This 
rough sport often ended fatally, as when Henry II. of France got his 
death-wound at a joust with one of his knights. Accidents like this 
brought the tournament into disrepute, and soon the clergy began to set 
their faces against it — nominally, because it was a perilous and bloody sport 
— really, perhaps, because they thought that the gold and silver wasted on 
these spectacles of useless glitter would be safer and better in the money- 
boxes of the Church, 

Chivalry in its fullest development was a compound of three distinct 
elements. It was at first a purely military institution, growing out of the 
warlike character of the Teutonic tribes. But a religious element was 
introduced about the eleventh century, when the clergy began to feel the 
importance of gaining a hold upon a body so great and powerful as the 
military order. The ceremony of creating a knight became a solemn re- 
ligious scene, and among other vows he swore to protect Mother Church, 
and to pay faithful attention to his religious duties. Latest of the three 
chivalric elements was the spirit of gallantry fostered by its vows. This 
influence, though deeply tinged with' licentiousness, helped to raise woman 
from the low, servile place she always holds in barbarous society, to her 
true position as the equal and companion of man. 

The decay of chivalry came in the natural course of events, when the 
system had done its destined work. It was found that the ponderous 
knight was as useless and helpless as a log when he lay unhorsed upon 
the ground. A very striking instance of this — and that which sank, per- 
haps, most deeply into the mind of Europe at the time — was afforded by 
the battle of Courtrai in West Flanders, fought in 1302, between the 



UO GREAT EVENTS 

French and the Flemish. To quote the words of an eloquent living 
writer, who sketches the scene in stirring Saxon words : " Impetuous 
valor, and contempt for smiths and weavers, blinded the fiery nobles. 
They rushed forward with loose bridles ; and as they had disdained to 
reconnoitre the scene of the display, they fell headlong, one after another, 
horse and plume, sword and spur, into one enormous ditch, which lay be- 
tween them and their enemies. On they came, an avalanche of steel and 
horseflesh, and floundered into the muddy hole. 

" Hundreds — thousands, unable .o check their steeds, or afraid to appear 
irresolute, or goggling in vain through the deep holes left for their eyes, 
fell, struggled, writhed, and choked, till the ditch was filled with trampled 
knights and tumbling horses, and the burghers on the opposite bank beat 
in the helmets of those who tried to climb up, with jagged clubs, and 
hacked their naked heads." Our English archers, too, formed a force 
against whom heavy-armed cavalry were of little avail. At Cressy and 
Poictiers the cloth-yard shafts won the day. 

Infantry began, toward the close of the Middle Ages, to be reckoned of 
some value in the field once more. In this movement the Swiss took the 
lead, inspired by the victory of their foot-soldiers over the chivalry of 
Austria ; and for some centuries the Swiss foot were to be found on almost 
every Continental battle-field, ranged in deep battalions, bristling with 
pikes, two-handed swords, and spiked maces, which bore the poetic name 
of morning stars. 

But it was gunpowder which really blew chivalry to pieces. Armor of 
proof might have been forged, and no doubt was forged, able to withstand 
the English shaft, or turn the edge of the Swiss broadsword ; but what 
could resist the cannon-ball ? Battles were now to be fought chiefly at a 
distance, no longer hand-to-hand ; science began to take the place of 
sheer strength. The art of war was wholly changed by this invention, 
which is said to have been brought into Europe by the Saracens. An 
Arabic writer in 1249 speaks of its use in war in his own day, one hun- 
dred years before the time of Schwartz, the monk of Goslar, who is re- 
ported to have mixed the ingredients accidentally one day during some 
chemical experiments. A hand-cannon was at first used. In the sixteenth 
century a long musket, which rested on a forked stick, dealt out leaden 
death. At first pikemen were scattered among the musketeers to repel 
ca\alry ; but the invention of the bayonet made the musketeer a pikeman 
tco. Since that time infantiy have formed the main strength of armies. 

Bayard, who fell in France in 1524, was almost the last of the preux 
chevaliers of that knightly land. The Emperor Maximilian I. is still 
called in Germany ^' der letzte Ritter" — the last knight. In England, 
chivalry, as a system, lasted till the time of Elizabeth. 



OF HISTORY. 141 

We find a brilliant reflection of chivalry in the romantic literature which 
grew up about the time of the Crusades. The Romance pictures the 
knight in his glory — splendid, but clumsy ; suave and courteous in the ex- 
treme, but very often brutal. The enchanted castle, with its beautiful and 
distressed captives, the monster dragons and other terrors to be overcome 
by the unconquered arm of the hero, were the allegorical images of evils 
existing in that terrible time when might was the only right, highly mag- 
nified and colored by the untaught poets who sang of them. 

It is a pity to think that the knight-errant is a veiy doubtful character, 
v.'hose picture, if ever he existed, must have been drawn from those 
chevaliers who travelled from tournament to tournament, claiming and 
receiving hospitality everywhere as citizens of the world. The Romance, 
owing its birth to chivalry, repaid the benefit by prolonging the life of 
chivalry for many years. The deeds of Arthur and Charlemagne formed 
the subjects of some of the earliest Romances. The trouveres of Nor- 
mandy, the troubadours of Provence, and the minnesingers of Suabia kept 
up the strain. We find it, its wild ruggedness all toned away, flowing in 
the melodious verse of Ariosto and Tasso, and the less musical, but not 
less picturesque, tales of our own Chaucer. And, in our own day, the 
Idylls of the King, breaking from the harp of Tennyson, tell a delighted 
land that the noble old music of chivalry is not yet dead. 

From the Knight of the Middle Ages grew the Gentleman of modern 
days, the elements of character remaining the same. As the true knight 
of old, the true gentleman now must be religious, brave, and courteous. All 
who pretend to the " grand old name," without possessing these qualities, 
are cheats and counterfeits. But as there is no good in the world, out of 
which, by Satan's device, some evil is not made to grow, so from these 
three roots of true knighthood and gentlemanhood, strange, distorted 
things have sprung. From the warlike element came absurd fantastic 
notions of honor, and the duel, now happily all but extinct in this country. 
And too often the courtesy due- to the weaker sex has been lost in a de- 
grading licentiousness, whose foul breath, polluting the very word " gal- 
lantry," has turned it into a light and jesting name for a deadly sin. 

GREAT NAMES OF THE FIFTH PERIOD. 

Abelard, born 1079, in Bretagne — a famous teacher of logic and divinity 
— 5,000 students attended his lectures at once — charged by St. Ber- 
nard with heresy — author of many theological works — died near 
Chalons in 1142. 

Thomas Aquinas, bom 1227, at Aquino in Naples — a noble — famed for 
theology — chief work, " Summa Theologise," — ^wrote also Latin hymns 



142 GREA T E VENTS OF HISTOR Y. 

— the great opponent of Duns Scotus — ^his followers, called Thomists, 
upheld the supreme efficacy of divine grace — died 1274. 

CiMABUE, born 1240, at Florence — a noble — the father of modem painting 
— restored the study from living models — worked in fresco and dis- 
temper, for oil-painting was not yet in use — died in 1300. 

John Duns Scotus, born about 1265 — famed as a theologian^ — a Francis- 
can monk — called the " Subtle Doctor " — had great controversies with 
T. Aquinas about free-will and divine grace — his followers called 
Scotists — died in 1308. 

Dante, born 1265, at Florence — one of the Alghieri family — much en- 
gaged in political feuds — the greatest of Italian poets — chief work, 
" Divina Commedia," a vision of the invisible world — died at Raven- 
na in 1321. 

Petrarch, born 1304, at Arezzo — a great Italian poet — lived much at 
Avignon, at the papal court — deeply attached to a lady called Laura, 
whose praises are sung in his soft melodious " Sonnets " — he wrote, 
besides, Latin verse and prose — died 1374. 

Boccaccio, bom 1313, in Florence — the author of the earliest chivalrous 
poem in Italian, " La Teseide," from which Chaucer took the Knight's 
Tale, but more remarkable as the father of Italian prose — chief work 
the " Decameron," consisting of one hundred tales — died 1375. 

Wycliffe, born in Yorkshire — professor of divinity, Baliol College, Oxon 
— the first English reformer — the father of English prose — famous as 
the translator of the Bible into English — died 1384. 

Froissart, born 1337, at Valenciennes — son of a herald-painter — for 
some time secretary of Queen Philippa of England — noted as a his- 
torian and poet — chief work his " Chronicle," a brilliant picture of 
war and chivalry in western Europe from 1326 to 1400. 

Chaucer, bom 1328, in London — the first great English poet — lived aJ 
the courts of Edward III. and Richard II. — chief work, the " Canter- 
bury Tales " — died 1400. 



SIXTH PERIOD. 

OEIEi'LT FROM THE ESTABUSHUENT OF SWISS INDEPENDENCE TO THS 
BEFORMATION. 



CHAPTER I. 



ITALY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
Central Point: RIENZI TRIBUNE OF ROME, 1347 A.D. 

Rise of Italian republics— Gregory VII.— Guelphs and Ghibellines— Frederic Redbeard— Bat- 
tle of Legnano — Decline of most republics— Glory of Venice — Her territory — The Council 
of Ten— Marino Faliero— The Foscari— Her decline— Florence— The Signoria— Feuds— 
Cosmo de Medici — Plot of the Pazzi— Lorenzo the Magnificent — Savonarola— Crescentius 
Consul of Rome — Arnold of Brescia — Popes at Avignon— Rienzi the Tribune. 

Except a few scattered spots, chiefly in the south, Italy formed a part of 
the empire of Charlemagne ; and when that great fabric fell to pieces, 
this, its loveliest fragment, dowered with the fatal gift of beauty, became 
a prey to unceasing changes, which left it what it has been ever since, a 
piece of patchwork on the map of Europe. 

In the ninth century the ravages of Hungarians and Saracens compelled 
the inhabitants of Italian towns to build strong walls round their homes 
and market-places. The sturdy burghers then, feeling their own strength, 
refused any longer to brook the insolent dominion of the nobles, who 
were accordingly forced to retire to their castles in the country. Thus 
arose the famous Italian republics, whose story is the brightest page in the 
history of modern Italy. About the same time, and from causes some- 
what similar, arose the cottununes of France, and the great free cities of 
the Low Countries and Germany. 

A Tuscan monk, Hildebrand, who had long been Archdeacon of Rome, 
became pope in 1073, with the title of Gregory VII. His grand aim being 
to subdue the whole world to the power of the priesthood, he enacted 
that all rulers, even up to the emperor himself, v/ho should dare to invest 
any one with an ecclesiastical office, should be excommunicated. The 
emperor Henry IV. of Germany, tenacious of rights long held by his 
fathers, among other deeds in defiance of this edict, appointed an Arch- 
bishop of Cologne. Gregory summoned him to Rome to take his trial for 



144 GREAT EVENTS 

such conduct. Henry wrote with his own hand a letter to the pope, an- 
nouncing that he, Gregory, had been deposed by the Synod of Worms. 
But it was an unequal contest. The terrible thunders of excommunica. 
tion, pealing from the chair of St. Peter, fell upon the devoted emperor, 
drove his faithless or terror-stricken chiefs from his side, and brought him 
in mid-winter over the snowy Alps, to make his peace with the offended 
pontiff. 

In the courtyard of the castle of Canossa he lay, barefooted and clad in 
a hair-shirt, for three frosty days of January, before Gregory 

1077 would grant him an audience. Yet even this humiliation was 
A.D. forgotten, and the War of Investitures, as it was called, "being 
renewed, continued to convulse Italy, until 1 122, when it was 
closed by the Peace of Worms. 

The owner of Canossa, when Henry IV. did penance there, was Matilda, 
Countess of Tuscany, who was one of the warmest friends the papacy has 
ever had. At her death she bequeathed to the Church the duchy of Spo- 
leto, and the march of Ancona. The legality of this gift being questioned, 
a new quarrel sprang up between the emperors and the popes, which 
widened into the great feud between Ghibellines and Guelphs. These 
names were borrowed from two great rival German houses, the Guelphs 
of Bavaria, and the Hohenstaufens of Suabia, who were called Ghibel- 
lines from a corruption of Waiblingen, one of their forts on the Rems. 

The Ghibellines were the friends of the emperors ; the Guelphs, with 
whom the pope generally sided, upheld the cause of the Italian people, 
who were striving to rend the links that bound them to the German em- 
pire. The great struggle desolated Italy for centuries. 

Frederic Redbeard, already named in the story of the third Crusade,- 
was emperor from 1152 to 1190. His attempts to strip the Italian towns 
of their dearly-prized liberties kindled a war. Milan first took up arms ; 
but after a valiant resistance it fell in 1 162, and all its fine old Roman 
buildings, monuments of dead grandeur, were mingled with the dust, 
Frederic then placed over the Italian towns military governors, called 
Podcstas, whose oppression kept alive the fire of revolt, which was care- 
fully fanned, too, by the exiles of Milan. In 1167 the League of Lom- 
bardy was formed, when twenty-three Italian cities united to claim, among 
other privileges, the right of electing their own magistrates and making 
their own laws. By granting charters, and working on local jealousies. 
Frederic contrived to muster in opposition a league of Ghibelline cities. 
For nine years war wasted northern Italy, until the decisive 
1176 battle of Legnano was fought on the road from Milan to Lago 
A.D. Maggiore. There, at one time of the day, the canvccio of 
Milan, a great chariot drawn by oxen, which bore the huge 



OF HISTORY. 145 

flagstaff of the city, was all but captured by a fierce rush of the German 
horse. But when the company of death — nine hundred young Milanese, 
sworn to die rather than be defeated — rescued the sacred banner by a gal- 
lant charge, the fortune of the day was changed, and Redbeard narrowly 
escaped with his life. Seven years later, by the peace of Constance, the 
emperor acknowledged the right of the Republics to govern themselves, 
to levy their own troops, and to wall their own towns. 

In the early days of these Italian Republics their chief magistrates were 
consuls, varying in number from two to six, whose power was checked by 
certain municipal councils. 

Bitter jealousy of one another, blazing often into war, and within the 
walls unceasing discord between the nobles and the people, sapped the 
prosperity of the Republics. One by one they fell, petty sovereignties 
rising on their ruins. And it would seem as if, when these scattered 
points of light went out, one by one, the brilliance of Italian glory was 
not dimmed, but concentrated with intenser lustre in a few great survi- 
vors. Venice and Florence were stars of the first magnitude, Pisa and 
Genoa still burned bright, though with an inferior splendor. 

In order, then, to get some idea of Italian history during the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, let us rapidly glance at Venice and Florence, con- 
cluding the chapter with a glimpse of Rome during the same period. 

Venice. — Fleeing from the sword of Attila in 452, the inhabitants of 
Venetia, a province which lay round the head of the Adriatic, sought 
refuge in the clustered islets near the mouth of the Brenta. There, 
governed by tribunes, they and their descendants fished, made salt, and 
carried on a constantly-widening commerce for more than two centuries. 
In 697 it was found necessary, from growing jealousies, to unite all the 
island republics under the rule of a Duke or Doge. 

Through all the changes of early Italian histor}' these islanders main- 
tained independence amid their lagoons, defying even the power of, 
Charlemagne. While at war with Pepin, the son of the great 
Frank, they built the capital of their republic on the island of 809 
Rivo Alto, or Rialto. Thither, some years later, they carried A.D, 
from Alexandria the body of their patron. Saint Mark, whose 
lion-flag ever after floated from the topmasts of their galleys, and from the 
cupolas of that magnificent pile of gold and marble — the cathedral of St. 
Mark — which is still the crowning beauty of romantic, picturesque Venice. 

The glory of Venice began with the Crusades, Her position, favorable 
for commerce, had already led to ship-building on a large scale ; and the 
hire of vessels to carry the Crusaders to Palestine filled her coffers with 
gold. Her ships brought back from Syria the silks and jewels and spices 
of the East. So this city of the waters, like Tyre of old, grew rich and 

7 



146 GREAT EVENTS 

strong, and her merchants became princes. The same causes levl to the 
rapid rise of her rival, Genoa, on the opposite shore of Italy. With her 
commerce, her manufactures, too, throve ; the silks and the glass made at 
Venice being especially prized. Among the splendid pageants of her 
days of pride the most striking was the wedding of the Adriatic. Every 
year, on Ascension Day, the doge, accompanied by a countless fleet of 
black gondolas, sailing out in the great Bucentaur, flung a ring into the 
blue waters of the sea. 

The Venetian territory spread at an early date round the northern shore 
of the gulf. Istria and Dalmatia became hers. During the fourth Cru- 
sade she gained the Ionian Islands, the Morea, and Candia ; and later she 
extended her sway inland through Lombardy, as far as the Adda, Cyprus 
was conquered by her in 1480. 

In 1172 the appointment of the doge and other magistrates was vested 

in the grand council of four hundred and eighty members. Change after 

change took place, until a Council of Ten secured the gov- 

1325 ernment to themselves. Under this unchecked oligarchy a 
A.D. reign of terror began. The Ten were terrible ; but still more 
terrible were the three inquisitors — two black, one red — ap- 
pointed in 1454. 

Deep mystery hung over the Three. They were elected by the ten ; 
none else knew their names. Their great work was to kill ; and no man 
— doge, councillor, or inquisitor — was beyond their reach. Secretly they 
pronounced a doom, and erelong the stiletto or the poison-cup had 
done its work, or the dark waters of the lagoon had closed over a life. 
The spy was everywhere. No man dared to speak out, for his most inti- 
mate companions might be on the watch to betray him. Bronze vases, 
shaped like a lion's mouth, gaped at the corner of every square to receive 
the names of suspected persons. Gloom and suspicion haunted gondola 
and hearth. 

Forty-ninth Doge of Venice was old Marino Faliero, elected in Septem- 
ber, 1354. A lord, who had a grudge against the doge, stole into the ban- 
quet-hall one night when the guests were gone, and wrote upon the wooden 
throne some words insulting to the young and lovely wife of Faliero 
Next day the writing was seen ; the culprit was soon discovered. But the 
light punishment inflicted on him by the council so enraged the doge, 
that he joined in a plot to murder the chief nobles and make himself Lord 
of Venice. The conspiracy was discovered, and the doge was beheaded 
on the Giant's Staircase in April, 1355. 

Another noted doge was Francesco Foscari, a man of much military 
genius, who ruled from 1423 to 1457. Inspired by his warlike ardor., the 
Venetians conquered a part of Lombardy But the nobles grew jealous 



OF HISTORY. 



147 



of his popularity. His son Jacopo, charged upon suspicion with receiving 
bribes from the Duke of Milan, was terribly tortured three times, and 
driven into exile, where he died ; and the old man, deposed after a govern- 
ment of thirty-four years, died while the great bell of St. Mark's was peal- 
ing out its welcome to his successor. 

The aristocracy had then no rivals in ruling Venice. But the power 
of the state was decaying. The League of Cambray was formed against 
the island city in 1508 by the pope, the emperor, and the kings of France 
and Spain ; and the defeat she suffered at Aignadel, in May, 1509, was a 
blow from which she never recovered. Her principal foes in after times 
were the Turks, who stripped her of Cyprus and Candia. 

Florence. — Florence was originally a colony of Roman soldiers. Ly- 
ing, in the opening of the twelfth century, under the dominion of the 
Countess Matilda, it naturally became strongly attached to the popedom ; 
and, when all the Republic cities of Tuscany took one side or other in the 
great struggle — pope versus emperor — we find Florence at the head of the 
Guelphic League, organized by Pope Innocent III., while Pisa headed the 
Ghibelline cities. But long before the days of Innocent III. the Floren- 
tines had drawn blood in the great quarrel. It was their first feat of arms. 
Matilda was still alive in 11 13, when at Monte Cascioli the goldsmiths and 
weavers of the fair city met the imperial Vicar in battle, scattered his 
knights, and slew himself. 

The strength of the state lay in the commercial spirit of the citizens. 
They wove in silk and wool, made jewelry, and especially followed the 
occupation of bankers. They transacted business with kings. Their 
gold florin, coined in 1252, became the standard currency of Europe. 
The neighboring nobles sought to be admitted as citizens ; but by the 
city-law they were obliged to enrol themselves on the register of some 
trade. Thus we find the name of Dante gracing the roll of the Floren- 
tine apothecaries. 

In 1250 the citizens, revolting against the rule of the Ghibelline nobles, 
established a magistracy styled the Signoria. One of the first acts of the 
newly-formed power was to recall the Guelph exiles to Florence. The 
year 1254 is known in the annals of Florence as the "year of victory," for 
during it they took Volterra and Pistoia. In 1406 they conquered Pisa, 
and in 1421 bought Leghorn from the Genoese. 

It would be tedious and confusing to trace the feuds, in spite of which 
Florence grew great and rich. Enough to say that the Guelphs triumphed, 
and then split into two factions — Bianchi and Neri — white and black. 
Dante was a white Guelph ; but, when banished with his party, the mode- 
rates, he became a Ghibelline, and died poor and broken-hearted at Ra- 
venna. 



148 GREA T E VENTS 

In 1342 a leader of mercenaries. Gualtier de Brienne, Duke of Athens, 
became Lord of Florence, — a sad sign of the state of things within the 
city. In a few months, backed by his troops, he cut off the chief men of 
the city, and contrived to make up for himself a purse of 400,000 gold 
florins. But one day, when he had summoned a meeting of the citizens, 
more of whom he meant to slay, the burghers rose with their rallying 
cry, "Fopolo, Popolo" besieged his palace, and soon forced him to leave 
the Florentine territory. 

The feuds of the Albizzi and the Ricci convulsed the state at the open- 
ing of the fifteenth century. Siding with the latter were the great family 
of the Medici. 

The merchant, Giovanni de Medici, made a great fortune ; and his son 
Cosmo, born in 1389, himself, too, a banker, took a lead in Florentine 
politics. The Albizzi gaining the upper hand, he was imprisoned and ex- 
iled. But he was recalled within a year. Although he held no distinct 
name as governor of the state, he yet continued to guide all political 
movements by his influence over the Balia — a committee of citizens, to 
whom all sovereignty was intrusted. And when he died, in 1464, the 
grateful epitaph, " Father of his Country," was graven on his tornb. 

Lorenzo, the grandson of Cosmo, was born in 1448. His crippled and 

delicate father, Pietro, had left the government in the hands of five 

friends ; but Lorenzo and his brother, when they came of age, took the 

reins themselves. The rage of the Pazzi, rich, ambitious merchants, one 

of whom had been among the five, being excited, an attack was made 

upon the brothers in the cathedral. Giuliano was slain ; but 

1478 Lorenzo, parrying the blow, escaped into the sacristy. The 

A.D. friends of the Medici then fell upon the conspirators. The 

archbishop and three of the Pazzi were hanged out of the 

palace windows. 

So Lorenzo became chief of Florence, fulfilling the design of his grand- 
father, whose aim had been to subject the state to the Medici. The pope, 
Sixtus IV., enraged at the death of the archbishop, excommunicated 
Lorenzo, and, with the aid of the King of Naples, made war against him. 
After two campaigns, Lorenzo, visiting Naples, made a treaty with the 
king, which led to a peace with the pope. Both events were hastened by 
a descent of the Turks upon Otranto. 

His splendid patronage of art and literature gained for Lorenzo the 
name of the Magnificent. Himself was no mean poet. He enriched the 
Laurentian library with many hundred rare manuscripts collected in Italy 
and the East. He turned his gardens at Florence into an academy, to 
which students flocked to study the antique from the exquisite sculptures 
gathered there. And by supporting young artists, and bestowing prize? 



OF HISTOR y. 



149 



for works of merit, he gaVe an impulse to art, which made Florence the 
scene of some of the most brilliant triumphs ever won by brush or chisel. 

In 1489 Savonarola, a Dominican monk of Ferrara, came on foot to 
Florence, and soon began with eloquent tongue to lash the abuses of the 
Romish Church. Three years later, Lorenzo, dying of gout and fever, 
sent to seek absolution from the brave monk ; but Savonarola would not 
grant it unless the dying prince restored liberty to his country. Lorenzo, 
unwilling to do this, died unabsolved. He was then forty-four. Savona- 
rola was burned to death in the grand square of Florence in the year 1498. 

"When Charles VIII. of France, crossing the Alps, invaded Italy (1494), 
the fair city of Florence was rudely spoiled. The magnificent library was 
destroyed ; statues, vases, cameos were wantonly defaced, or carried off and 
lost. The Medici, then banished from Florence, wei-e i-estored in 15 12. 
And in the following year Giovanni, second son of Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent, became pope under the title of Leo X. The extinction of the 
republic dates from 1537, when Cosmo I., one of a collateral branch of 
the Medici, was proclaimed Duke of Florence. In 1569 he was created 
by the pope Grand Duke of Tuscany. 

Rome. — The names of Ciescentius and Arnold of Brescia are prominent 
in the story of mediaeval Rome. 

The consul Crescentius, a man of patrician rank, made a vain effort, at 
the close of the tenth century, to revive the old republic. The qaa 
emperor, Otho III., stormed the Castle of St. Angelo, and 
hanged the daring patriot.. 

About a century and a half later, a monk, named Arnold of Brescia, 
was, by order of the pope, burned alive at the gate of St. 
Angelo, for preaching against abuses in Church and State. 1155 
" Roman Republic," " Roman Senate," " Comitia of the Peo- A.D 
pie," were strange and dangerous words to be heard in Roman 
streets ; and, therefore, the bold tongue that spoke them withered in the 
flames. 

But most remarkable was the revolution of which Nicola di Rienzi was 
the central figure. It took place during the seventy-two years (1305-1377] 
spent by the popes at Avignon, to M'hich place a French pope, Clement 
v., removed the papal court in 1305. 

Rienzi, the son of an innkeeper and a washerwoman, was, in early 
youth, deeply read in the great masters of the Latin tongue. Cicero and 
Livy were his special favorites. His classic enthusiasm gained for him the 
friendship of Petrarch. He was very poor, reduced to a single coat, when 
he received the post of apostolic notary, which rescued him from poverty. 
The feuds of the noble families, Colonna, Orsini, and Savelli, filled the 
streets with daily riot and bloodshed. Rienzi, whose fiery eloquence made 



I50 GREAT EVENTS 

him a man of mark in Rome, might often be seen in the centre of an 
eagerly attentive crowd, interpreting the words of some old brass or marble 
tablet, and dwelling fondly on the ancient glories of senate and people. 
Encouraged by the flashes of patriotic fire which from lime to time burst 
from the enslaved people, he formed the bold design of seizing the helm of 
the state. 

When the time was ripe, and old Stephen Colonna was absent from 
Rome, one hundred citizens met by night on Mount Aventine. 
May 20j Next day a solemn procession, bearing three great banners, 
1347 passed from St. Angelo to the Capitol. Rienzi was there, 
A.D. bareheaded, but clad otherwise in full armor ; and on his 
right hand marched the papal vicar, the Bishop of Orvieto. 
The deep tolling of the great bell drove the nobles in alarm from Rome. 
Rienzi, then elected tribune, ruled Rome for seven months. At first all 
went well. He was beloved at home, and honored abroad. His grand 
design was to unite all Italy into one great republic. Throughout the 
Roman territory robbers found their occupation gone ; the inns were full ; 
the buzz of commerce sounded in the markets ; and the ploughman's 
whistle was heard in the fields. But Rienzi's vanity spoiled all. For- 
getting the simple grandeur of the old tribunes, be dressed in silk and 
gold. Silver trumpets sounded his approach, as he rode on a white steed, 
amid his fifty guardsmen. The nobles, secretly gathering strength, rose 
in arms against him. Possessing no militaiy genius, he speedily lost the 
confidence of the people. A papal bull was issued against him. When 
the Count of Minorbino, with one hundred and fifty soldiers, seized Rome, 
the alarm-bell tolled in vain. None answered the summons ; and the de- 
graded tribune hid his head within the Castle of St. Angelo, whence he 
soon escaped, to lead a miserable life, wandering through Italy, Germany, 
and Bohemia. In 1352 the emperor gave him up to the pope, and for 
some time he dwelt in custody at Avignon. 

Two years later he was sent to Rome, by Pope Innocent VI., with the 

title of senator. A burst of enthusiastic welcome greeted him. 

Oct. 8j But in four short months, his palace being stormed and burned 

1354 by a furious mob, he was stabbed to death beside the Lion ol 

A.D. Porphyry which guards the base of the Capitol stairs. 

POPES OP THE POURTEENTH AND FIPTEENTH CENTURIES. 

A.D. 

Boniface VIII 

Benedict XI 1303 

Vacancy for eleven months 1304 

Clement V 1305 



»5i 



OF HISTORY. 

A.D. 

Vacancy for two years and four months 1314 

John XXII 1316 

Benedict XII 1334 

Clement VI 1342 

Innocent VI 1352 

Urban V 1362 

Gregory XI 1370 

Urban VI 1378 

Boniface IX 138 

Benedict XIII 1394 

Innocent VII 1404 

Gregory XII 1406 

Alexander V ^. . . 140c, 

John XXIII. 1410 

Martin V .. 1417 

EUGENIUS IV, I43I 

Nicholas V 1447 

Calixtus III 1455 

Pius II 1458 

Paul II , 1464 

Sixtus IV 1471 

Innocent VlII 1484 

Alexander VI 1492 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OTTOMAN TURKS. 

Central Point : SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1453 A.D. 

Rise of the Turks— The Emir Othman— The Janissaries— First footing in Enrope — Victories 
of Bajazet— Timonr the Lame— Accession of Mahomet II.— Siege of Constantinople begins 
— The fire-ships— The turning-point — The great assault — Death of Constantino— Policy (rf 
Mahomet— Defeat at Belgrade — Crimea taken — Otranto. 

• Somewhere in the wild steppes between the Caspian Sea and Lake 
Aral the Turkomans or Turks once dwelt. 

The first branch of this Tartar race that came pouring westward, extend- 
ing their empire even up to the very Bosphorus, were the Seljuk Turks, 
But their power went down into ruins before the terrible Mongol, Zenghis 
Khan, who, in the thirteenth century, drenched Asia with the blood of 
millions. 



152 GREAT EVENTS 

There was, however, another Turkish tribe destined to play a more bril 
liant part in the world's history. These were the Osmanlis, or Ottomans,^ 
who derived their name from the Emir Osman or Othman (the Bone- 
breaker), the founder of their empire. Othman, a handsome, black-browed 
man, with very long arms, ruled the Turks from 1299 to 1326. The great 
object of his unceasing efforts was to conquer the possessions of the 
Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor ; and when he lay on his death-bed, the 
news came that the arms of his son Orchan had been crowned by the 
capture of the great city of Brusa. There the seat of the Ottoman Empire 
was for some time fixed. 

The reign of Orchan (i 326-1360) was marked by the establishment ol 
the famous Janissaries (New Troops). Every year a thousand Christian 
childi-en were torn from their parents, forced to become Moslems, and 
trained to a soldier's life by the most rigorous discipline. This was done 
yearly for three centuries ; and thus was formed that terrible body of 
troops, whose fierce military ardor, and unpitying hearts, made them first 
the safeguard and then the terror of the sultans. 

Solyman, the eldest son of Orchan, crossing the Hellespont one night 

with a few warriors, seized a castle on the European shore. In 

1356 three days three thousand Ottomans garrisoned the stronghold. 

A.D. This event marks the first firm footing gained by the Turks 

on European soil ; and they never since hava lost their hold. 

Under Amurath I. (1360-1389) Adrianople, being taken by the Turks, 
was made for a time the centi-e of their European possessions. A league 
was formed by the Sclavonic nations along the Danube to repel the infidel 
invaders, but in vain. The crescent — such was the device borne on the 
Turkish banners — still shone victorious in Thrace and Servia. 

Bajazet, a drunken sensualist, who, succeeding his father, reigned from 
1389 to 1402, exchanged the title Emir for the prouder name of Sultan. 
At Nicopolis he routed the chivalry of Hungary and France, which had 
mustered to roll back the dark flood of Moslem war. Classic Greece, 
too, was ravaged by his victorious hordes. Steadily he seemed to be 
advancing in the gigantic plan of European conquest sketched out by his 
ambitious father, when the most terrific warrior Asia has ever borne, ris- 
ing on his eastern frontier, dashed his power into fragments. 

This was Timour the Lame, whose name has been corrupted into 
Tamerlane, a Mongol descended from Zenghis Khan. From his capital, 
Samarcand, he spread his conquests on every side — from the Chinese 
Wall to the Nile ; from the springs of the Ganges to the heart of Russia. 
Whenever this demon conqueror took a city, he raised as a trophy of his 

* The modern Turks call themselves Osmanli— not Turks, which latter name im- 
plies riileness and barbarism. 



OF HISTORY. 



153 



success a pyramid of bleeding human heads. Bajazet was obliged to 
forego the intended siege of Constantinople by the attack of the ferocious 
Mongol upon the eastern frontier of his newly-acquired dominions in 
Asia Minor. The decisive battle was fought at Angora, where 
Bajazet, utterly defeated, was made prisoner. Carried about 1402 
with the Mongol army in a litter with iron lattices, which gave A.D. 
rise to the common story of his imprisonment in an iron cage, 
the Turkish sultan died, eight months after, of a broken heart. His con- 
queror, Timour, died in 1405, while on the march to invade China. 

Four Turkish sultans reigned between the wretched Bajazet and the 
Conqueror of Constantinople. 

Amurath II., last of the four, having died at Adrianople in 1451, his son 
Mahomet, crossing rapidly to Europe, was crowned second sultan of that 
name. He was a terrible compound of fine literary taste with revolting 
cruelty and lust. One of his very first acts after he became sultan was 
to cause his infant brother to be disowned, while the baby's mother was 
congratulating him on his accession. 

The throne of the Eastern Empire was then filled by Constantine 
Palseologus, no unworthy wearer of the purple. Limb after limb had 
been lopped from the great trunk. There was still life in the heart, 
though it throbbed with feeble pulses ; but now came the mortal thrust. 

After more than a year of busy preparation, seventy thousand Turks, 
commanded by Mahomet II. in person, sat down in the spring of 1453 
before Constantinople. . Their lines stretched across the landward or 
western side of the triangle on which the city was built. A double wall, 
and a great ditch one hundred feet deep, lay in their front ; and within 
this rampart the Emperor Constantine marshalled his little band of 
defenders. A little band indeed it was, for scarcely six thousand out of a 
population of ijiore than one hundred thousand souls would arm for the 
defence of the city ; and western Christendom was so dull or careless 
that, with the exception of two thousand mercenaries under Giustiniani, a 
noble of Genoa, these had no foreign aid. The harbor of the Golden 
Horn, guarded by a strong chain across its mouth, sheltered only fourteen 
galleys. The Turkish fleet consisted of three hundred and twenty 
vessels of different sizes. 

The siege began. On both sides cannon and muskets of a rude kind 
were used. One great gun deserves special notice. It was 
cast by a European brassfounder at Adrianople, and threw a April 6. 
stone ball of six hundred pounds to the distance of a mile. But 
such cannon could be fired only six or seven times a day. Lances and 
arrows flew thick from both lines ; .and heavy stones from the balists 
filled up the pauses of the cannonade. 

7* 



154 GREAT EVENTS 

At first, fortune seemed to smile on the besieged. A vigorous assault 
of the Turks upon the walls was repulsed, and the wooden tower they had 
used in the attack was burned. 

One day, in the middle of April, the watchmen of the besieged saw the 
white sails of five ships gleaming on the southward horizon. They came 
from Chios, carrying to the beleaguered city fresh troops, wheat, wine, and 
oil. The Greeks, with anxious hearts, crowded the seaward wall. A 
swarm of Turkish boats pushed out to meet the daring barks, and, curv- 
ing in a crescent shape, awaited their approach. Mahomet, riding by the 
edge of the sea, with cries and gestures urged his sailors to the attack. 
Three times the Turks endeavored to board the enemy ; but as often the 
flotilla reeled back in confusion, shattered with cannon-shot and scorched 
with Greek fire, while the waters were strewn with the floating wreck of 
those vessels which were crushed by collision with the heavy Christian 
galleys. Steadily onward came the five ships, safe into the harbor of the 
Golden Horn. The Turkish admiral was doomed by the furious sultan to 
be impaled ; but the sentence was commuted to one hundred blows with 
a golden bar, which, we are told, Mahomet himself administered with 
right good will. 

Then came the turning-point of the siege. The sultan, feeling that his 
attack by land must be seconded by sea, formed a bold plan. It was to 
convey a part of his fleet overland from the Propontis, and launch them 
in the upper end of the harbor. The distance was six miles ; but by 
means of rollers running on a tramway of greased planks, eighty of the 
Turkish vessels were carried over the rugged ground in one night. A 
floating battei-y was then made, from which the Turkish cannon began to 
play with fearful effect on the weakest side of the city. 

When the attack had lasted for seven weeks, a broad gap was to be 

seen in the central rampart. Many attempts at negotiation had come to 

nothing, for Constantine refused to give up the city, and nothing else 

would satisfy the sultan. At last a day was fixed for the grand 

May 29j assault. At daybreak the long lines of Turks made their 

1453 attack. When the strength of the Christians was almost ex- 

A.D. hausted in endless strife with the swarms of irregular troops who 

led the way, the terrible Janissaries advanced. The storm grew 

louder, the rattle of the Turkish drums mingling with the thunder of the 

ordnance. Just then the brave Giustiniani, defending the great breach, 

was wounded ; and when, after this loss, the defence grew slacker, a body 

of Turks, following the Janissary Hassan, clambered over the ruined wall 

into the city. Amid the rush Constantine Palseologus, last of the Caesars, 

fell dead, sabred by an unknown hand ; and with him fell the Eastern 

Empire. 



OF HISTORY. 



155 



At noon on the same day Mahomet summoned the Moslems to prayer 
In the church of St. Sophia — thus establishing the rites of Islam where 
Christian worship had been held ever since the days of Constantine the 
Great. 

It was not, however, the policy of the sultan to root the Greek worship 
out of the conquered city ; and so, ten days after his victory, we find him 
installing a new patriarch, and announcing himself to be the protector of 
the Greek Church. And to fill the ruined and deserted streets of the long- 
decaying city, he transplanted thither crowds from all parts of his empire ; 
so that once more Constantinople was alive with a busy throng. 

Mahomet was only twenty-three when he overthrew the Eastern Em- 
pire. The remainder of his reign — twenty-eight years — was spent in 
ceaseless endeavors to extend the Turkish power. His great opponents 
were Scanderbeg, Prince of Albania, and Hunyades, who drove him, with 
broken ranks, and the loss of all his cannon, from before the walls of Bel- 
grade, then the key of Hungary (1456). Two years earlier h** had con 
quered the Peloponnesus. 

But his great conquest, next to the capture of Constantinople, was the 
reduction of the Crimea in 1475, by the Grand Vizier Ahmed, The failure 
of an attack upon Rhodes, held by the Knights of St. John, and a suc- 
cessful descent upon southern Italy, which was crowned by the taking of 
Otranto, were the chief events of his last years. The success at Otranto 
was the first step to a long-cherished plan — the conquest of Italy r but his 
sudden death, in 148 1, checked the further progress of the Moslem arm» in 
that land. 

THE LAST EMPERORS OF THE EAST. 

A.D. 

Michael VIII 1261 

Andronicus II. (Palseologus the Elder) 12S2 

Andronicus III. (the Younger) 1332 

John Pal^eologus 1341 

Manuel Pal^ologus 1391 

John Pal^ologus II 1425 

Constantine XIII. Pal^ologus 1448-53 

THE FIRST TWELVE TURKISH SULTANS. 

A.D. 

Othman 1299 

Orchan 1326 

Amurath 1 1360 

Bajazet 1 1380 

Solyman 1401 



156 GREAT EVENTS 



A.D. 



Musa-Cheleby 1410 

Mahomet I i4i£ 

Amurath II 1421 

Mahomet II 1451 

Bajazet II 1481 

Selim I 1512 

S01,YMAN II., THE MAGNIFICENT I52O-66 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EXPULSION OF THE MOORS FROM SPAIN. 

Central Point: THE CAPTURE OF ALHAMA, U82 A.D. 

Emirate of Cordova— Abd-el-Rahman—Al-Hakem— The Moors— The Cid— Navas de Tolosa 
Kingdom of Grranada— The Alhambra— Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella— Alhama 
taken— Fall of Malaga— Siege of Granada— Building of Santa F^Fate of Abdallah. 

The Ommiyads, as already said, breaking loose from the Caliphate of 
Asia, established the Emirate of Cordova in 755. Their dominions soon 
extended as far north as the Douro and the Ebro. But among the moun- 
tains of Asturias the wreck of the Visigothic nation, shattered on the field 
of Xeres, still survived ; and these, breathing the free mountain air, and 
eating the bread of hardship, became steeled into a race of heroes, whose 
succeeding generations never rested until the infidels, driven continually 
southward, were at last expelled from the peninsula. 

The greatest of the Ommiyads was Abd-el-Rahman III. (912-961). 
Having assumed the title of Caliph, he cleared the land of rebels, defeated 
the Christians of Leon at Zamora on the Douro, and developed the re- 
sources of the country with surprising wisdom. Roads, canals, and aque- 
ducts spread a net-work of industry everywhere. There were, besides eighty 
cities of lower rank, six capitals, glittering with gorgeous mosques and pal- 
aces. The fields smiled like lovely and fertile gardens. The seventeen 
universities, famous for the teaching of mathematics, astronomy, chemis- 
try, and medicine, were thronged with students from every corner of 
Europe. 

The peaceful reign of Al-Hakem, his successor, has been called the 
golden age of Arab literature in Spain (961-976). This prince delighted 
in the society of literary men ; no present pleased him better than a good 
book. His chief enjoyment was in the collection of rare manuscripts, 
with which, to the number of six hundred thousand, he filled every nook 
and corner of his palace. And this, at a time when England, France, and 
Italy were steeped in intellectual darkness 



OF HISTORY. 157 

Quarrels for the throne of Cordova broke up the great Emirate ; and in 
1031, when Hisham III., the last of the Ommiyads, died, a number of petty 
princes sprang up, whose feuds led to their own destruction. Pressed hard 
by the Castilians, they called in the aid of the Moors. Yusef came over the 
strait with a great army burning with fanatic zeal, overthrew 
Alfonso VI., and then subdued beneath his rule all the pigmy 1086 
Saracen princes, whose battles he had come to fight. So, upon A.D. 
the ruins of the once brilliant Saracen dynasty a Moorish power 
was built up, whose glory, though long dimmed, still lingers in romantic 
twilight among the hills of southern Spain. 

Rising from amid the dust of these early wars was seen the famous hero 
of the Spanish ballads, Roderigo Diaz de Bivar, called by the Christians 
Campeador (the Champion), and by the Moors, whom he so often defeated, 
El Seid,- the Cid (lord). Like the British Arthur, the outlines of his story 
are so dimmed, that some have doubted his existence at all. He was born 
at Burgos, in the eleventh century. Driven from Castile by the usurper 
Alfonso, he began a guerilla warfare against the Moors of Aragon, where 
he fixed his castle on a crag, which is still called the Rock of the Cid. His 
great achievement was the conquest, after a long siege, of the Moorish city 
of Valencia. There he established a little state, over which he ruled until 
his death in 1099. 

The first half of the thirteenth century was a fatal time for the Moeslms 
in Spain, whose power was terribly shattered in the great battle 
of Navas de Tolosa. We then find the great Emirate of Cor- 1212 
dova dwindled down to one-half its former size, and pressed A.D. 
to the south of the peninsula by the five kingdoms of Portugal, 
Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon. The crowns of Leon and Castile 
were united in 1230, in the person of Ferdinand III. (the Saint), whose arms 
carried defeat and dismay into the heart of Moorish Andalusia. 
He took from the infidels the rich basin of the Guadalquivir, 1236 
the cradle of their Spanish dominion. Cordova fell in 1236, A.P. 
and the Moors were then forced to concentrate their power 
within the mountain-land of Granada. 

Here shone the last blaze of Moorish splendor in Spain. Though 
shrunken to a circuit of one hundred and eighty leagues, the kingdom of 
Granada, under the Alhamarid monarchs, remained strong and glorious 
for two centuries and a half, defying the chivalry of Spain, and enriched 
by a commerce which carried her silks and sword-blades, her dyed leather 
her fabrics of wool, flax, and cotton, to the bazaars of Constantinople, 
Egypt, and even India. Mulberry-trees and sugar-canes clothed her fertile 
valleys. The fair Vega, or cultivated plain, sweeping away from the city 
of Granada for ten leagues, brought forth delicious fruits and heavy grain. 



158 GREAT EVENTS 

nourished by the waters of the Xenil, which were spread through a thou- 
sand rills by the industry of the Moorish husbandmen. 

To the east rose the white peaks of the Sierra Nevada ; and, crowning 
one of the two hills on which the city stood, was the palace or royal for- 
tress of the Alhambra, still, even in its ruins, the great sight of Spain. 

Outwardly the Alhambra seems to be but a plain square red tower ; but 
within, in spite of monkish whitewash and the vandalism of Charles V., 
who pulled down a large part to make room for a winter palace that was 
never finished, it is a group of halls, courts, and colonnades of wonderful 
grace and beauty. Their slender columns, rivalling the taper palm-tree ; 
walls whose stones were cut and pierced into a trellis-work, resembling in 
its exquisite delicacy lace or fine ivory carving ; domes honey-combed with 
azure and vermilion cells, and bright with stalactites of dropping gold ; 
groves of orange and myrtle, clustering round the marble basins in which 
cool silver fountains plashed their merry music, formed a scene of fairy 
splendor, amid which the monarchs of Granada held their brilliant court. 
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, Ferdinand, son of John II., 
King of Aragon, married Isabella, the daughter of John II., 
1469 King of Castile. This happy union was a great turning-point 
A.D. in the history of Spain. On the death of her brother Henry, 
in 1474, Isabella was proclaimed Queen of Castile ; and Fer- 
dinand received the crown of Aragon in 1479, when his father died. Thus 
all Spain, except the little states of Navarre and Granada, lay under the 
double sceptre of this illustrious pair. 

At once, Ferdinand and his wife formed the design of rooting out the 

Moorish dominion from the peninsula. The famous War of 

14:81 Granada began. The surprise of the little border town, Za- 

A,D. hara, by the Moors, provoked the storm. Well might an old 

Moorish Alfaki cry out, when he heard the news, " Woe is 

me ; the ruins of Zahara will fall on our own heads !" 

Ere long the first stone fell. The Marquis of Cadiz, gathering 5,500 horse 

and foot, marched upon Alhama, a strong city embosomed 

1482 among hills, about eight leagues from Granada, In the silence 

A.D. of night the citadel was surprised ; but the city was not sc 

easily taken. Barricades were flung up, cross-bow bolts and 

arquebuse balls swept the narrow streets, while women and children 

poured hot oil and pitch from the flat roofs upon the Christian soldiery. 

But all in vain. Moorish blood choked the kennels ; Moorish gold and 

jewels rewarded the exulting victors. Twice during the same year, vain 

attempts were made to recover this key of Granada. 

Loxa on the Xenil was then invested by the Spaniards ; but /hey soon 
abandoned the siege. Meanwhile, the strength of Granada was paralyzed 



OF HISTORY. 



159 



by internal disc* rd. The old king was deposed ; his brother and his son, 
both named Abdallah, contended for the throne. Soon after the Spanish 
arms sustained a severe reverse. The grand master of St. Jago, on his re- 
turn from a descent upon the borders of Malaga, becoming entangled 
among savage mountains, his troops were shot down in crowds by the 
Moors who lined the heights. 

But this was an exception ; one success after another crowned the arms 
of the Christians. The king, Abdallah, was made prisoner, as he was lurk- 
ing among the willows by the Xenil after his defeat at Lucena. He was 
soon, however, released for four hundred Christian captives and twelve 
thousand pieces of gold. 

Immense cannon, throwing huge balls of marble, gave the Spaniards a 
decided supremacy in this war of sieges. 

Gradually, the circle of fire narrowed round Granada. After a brave 
resistance of three months, the starving garrison of Malaga 
yielded their shot-torn ramparts to Ferdinand. And the fall 1487 
of Baza, two years later, prepared the way for the last great A.D. 
scene. 

During the spring and autumn of 1490, the Vega was ravaged, under the 
very shadow of Granada itself. Early in the next year, Fer- 
dinand encamped by the Xenil with 50,000 men. The city April, 
was choked with fugitives from all the country round. Chal- 1491 
lenges often passed between the besieged and the besiegers ; a.d. 
and the Vega was the scene of many single combats between 
the Spanish and Moorish cavaliers. The bright eyes of Isabella and her 
ladies kindled the valor of the gallant Dons ; and surely the dark-skinned 
warriors fought none. the less bravely, for remembering the soft Moorish 
eyes that watched their deeds from the lattices of Granada. But Isabella 
took, besides, a more active share in the siege, for, like our own Elizabeth 
at Tilbury, she rode about in full armor, inspecting, reviewing, and en- 
couraging her troops. 

Constant skirmishes took place. One day, the garrison made a grand 
sally at early dawn. They were met by the Marquis of Cadiz. The 
Moorish horse fought bravely ; but the foot giving way, all were driven 
into the city with the loss of their cannon. 

Force of arms, however, did less for Ferdinand than the building of 
Santa Fe In three months this town arose where his tents had been 
Solid stone took tlie place of fluttering canvas ; and the hearts 
of the Moors died within them, when they saw the masonry Jan. 2. 
wiich typified the stern resolve of the Christian king to win 1492 
Granada. Famine too, began to be felt. Unknown to the A.D. 
people, i bdallah and his advisers entered into negotiations 



i6o GREAT EVENTS 

with the Spaniards. On a fixed day, the Moorish king gave up the keys 
of the Alhambra ; and the great cross of silver, which had been through- 
out the war the leading ensign of the Christian host, was borne into the 
Moorish capital amid the pealing notes of the Te Deum. 

A few hours, and Abdallah reined his horse on a rocky hill, which is 
still called ' The Last Sigh of the Moor," to take a farewell look of Gra- 
nada. His eyes -were brimming with tears. " Well doth it become thee," 
said his mother, " to weep like a woman for what thou couldst not defend 
as a man." The treaty of surrender had left him still a shadow of royalty — 
the lordship of a mountain territory, for which he was to do homage to 
the Castilian sovereigns. After holding it for a year, he sold it to Fer- 
dinand, and, crossing to Africa, died in battle there. 

So, with the fall of Granada ended the Moslem power in Spain, after an 
existence of nearly eight centuries. The loss of Constantinople to 
Christendom was well atoned for by the day when — 

" Down from the Alhambra's minarets 
Were all the crescents flung." 

KINGS OF CASTILE DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

A.D. 

Ferdinand IV 

Alfonso XI 1312 

Peter the Cruel 1350 

Henry II , 1368 

John 1 1379 

Henry III 1390 

John II 1406 

Henry IV 1454 

Ferdinand V., the Catholic 1474 



CHAPTER IV. 



ENGLAND. 



Early Inhabitants— Phronicians— Landing of the Romans under Caesar— Native Britons, 
their Appearance and Arms— Destruction of Coesar's Ships— Second Invasion of tha 
Romans— Pursuit and Subjection of the Natives— Romans come again into England after 
the lapse of a hundred years. 

The early history of England lies buried in obscurity. Who the earliest 
inhabitants were, and at what time or under what circumstances they made 
their first settlements upon the island, historians have failed to determine. 



OF HISTORY. l6l 

It is generally believed that it was peopled by the Celts, who came from 
Western Asia, some say looo years before the beginning of the Christian era, 

The Phoenicians, at an early period, made voyages to the island for tin. 
We have nothing reliable, however, respecting the country or the people 
before the invasion of the island by the Romans, under Csesar, which oc- 
curred B. c. 55. 

Caesar landed 12,000 armed men amidst showers of darts, arrows, and 
stones which the natives hurled upon them as they waded from their ships 
to the land. 

The half-naked, rudely armed Britons fought their invaders with savage 
bravery, but were obliged to give way before the systematic discipline oi 
the Roman legions. 

The Romans camped near the shore, and the following morning the 
Britons sent messengers to Csesar offering submission. Four days after- 
ward a storm arose and did great damage to the Roman fleet. The 
Britons took advantage of this misfortune to attack their invaders ; but the 
generalship of Csesar again prevailed, and they were driven into the neigh- 
boring forests. 

They sued a second time for peace, and offered hostages. Csesar made 
terms with them, and immediately embarked his troops and returned to 
the continent. 

The next summer Csesar returned with 30,000 foot and 20,000 horse, 
and landed without opposition. The Britons had felled trees, and behind 
them awaited the approach of the Romans. 

Csesar forced their stronghold and scattered their forces. Just as he had 
gained this victory news came that another storm had destroyed many of 
his ships, and damaged all the others. 

The Romans hastened to the shore, and spent several days in repairing 
and securing their vessels. 

During that time the Britons mustered from all quarters, and united 
under one leader, Cassivellaunus, fortified their camp and waited the return 
of their enemies. 

Csesar having secured his vessels, returned to the interior, in pursuit of 
his strange foe, who dashed upon him from every wood and thicket, dealt 
a few sharp blows, and disappeared before the heavy-armed Romans 
could get into action. Csesar found the Britons strongly posted on the 
opposite bank of the Thames. 

They had placed stakes in the bottom of the river, the tops of which 
were made sharp, reaching just above the muddy bottom, and had pali- 
saded the bank. The Romans forded the river, charged up the bank 
demolished the palisades, and drove the Britons before them in dismay 
and England was added to the dependencies of Rome. 



1 62 GREAT EVENTS 

How far Caesar subjugated the people and established rule over tuem 
is not known. 

About lOO years after his first invasion, during the reign of Claudius, 
Agricola, a lieutenant, was sent to Britain. 

The Romans, under Agricola, made a more perfect conquest, instructed 
the people in agriculture and other useful arts, carried fortifications and 
walls across the island to arrest the invasions of northern tribes, and in- 
troduced the habits and practices of civilized life. 

In 410 A. I). Rome withdrev/ her troops from Britain, and with the 
withdrawal of her forces her rule in the island ended, having held posses- 
siou for 465 years. 

LIFE AMONG THE EARLY BRITONS. 

The ancient inhabitants of Great Britain, when Caesar landed, were 
divided into three classes : I. The farmers, who lived in the southern 
parts. They cultivated the land in a rude way, but kept large herds of 
cattle. They dwelt in rude structures built of wood, covered with the 
skins of animals, and in cabins partly underground, roofed with sods, 
their herds constituting their chief wealth. The furniture of their dwell- 
ings was scanty : rude benches for seats by day, upon which they spread 
their bed of skins at night, and a few culinary vessels of wood and sun- 
dried pottery, satisfied these rude people. Their food consisted of a 
coarse bread baked before the fire, milk, and cheese. 2. Farther north 
the inhabitants were exclusively herdsmen, wandering from place to place 
in search of pasturage for their cattle, living in tents, and depending en 
tirely upon the products of their herds for clothing as well as for food. 
3. North of these, the forests concealed a people still more rude, who 
subsisted wholly on the products of the chase, wild fruits, nuts, and 
roots, crawling into caves in winter, and dwelling in the open air in 
summer. 

The Romans, during the time they held the island, built villages and 
towns, and introduced their customs and manufactures. 

We may well suppose that great changes were wrought during the 
460 years of their rule. 

Buildings. — On the site of the rude hut of one room, constructed of 
logs and mud, arose a more pretentious dwelling of stone or brick, con- 
taining different apartments for cooking, eating, and sleeping ; the floors 
of which were paved with hewn stone or tiles. For the rude pottery of 
the ancient islander, glass and fine glazed earthen vessels of Roman manu- 
facture wei-e substituted, 
^ Dress. — The short frock of the young Briton was cast aside for the 



OF HISTORY. 163 

snowy toga of the Roman exquisite. The British belles too changed 
their dark woolen tunics and red scarfs for the more graceful stolas of the 
Roman ladies. 



CHAPTER V. 

SAXON RULE (INCLUDING THE DANISH REIGN), 4IO TO IO66 — 656 YEARS. 

Invitations to the Saxons to come to England — Scots and Ficts— Jates and Angles— Hept- 
archy— Christianity— Egbert— Danes — Alfred the Great— Anecdotes of Alfred— Surprise of 
the Danes — Reappearance of the Danes— Oxford University— Edward— Ethelstan—Edmnnd 
— Eldred — Ethelred — Massacre of the Danes — Edmnnd— Canute — Anecdote of Canute — 
Harold — Hardicannte — ^Restoration of the Saxon line. 

The Saxons were invited by the Britons to aid them in repelling the 
invasion of the Scots and Picts. The Britons having become dependent 
by submission, and enfeebled by contact with Roman civilization for more 
than four hundred years, found themselves powerless to resist the rude 
onsets of the hardy tribes of the highlands of the north. But they fared 
little better at the hands of their friends the Saxons. 

The Saxons accepted the invitation, came over, drove back the Scots 
and Picts. This accomplished, they fell in love with the mild climate 
and green fields of their island friends and concluded to stay. They in 
turn invited their friends to come over. Large numbers of Jutes and 
Angles came, and uniting with the Saxons, completely subjugated the 
country, and laid the foundation of the English nation and the Anglo-Saxon 
tongue. 

The Saxons, Angles, and Jutes having taken possession of the country, 
divided it into seven kingdoms known in history as the Saxon Hept- 
archy. 

The Heptarchy existed about 250 years amid almost ceaseless disputes 
and wars, until Egbert, king of Wessex, conquered the other kingdoms, 
and united them under one monarchy which he called England. 

Christianity was introduced into England during the existence of the- 
Heptarchy. In the year 597 Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine 
with forty other monks as missionaries to the island. The first impor- 
tant convert was Ethelbert, king of Kent. His subjects gradually fol- 
lowed the example, and the Druidism of the Celts, the bloody rites of 
Odin, and the Paganism of the Romans faded away before the light of 
the blessed Gospel. 

The Danes, soon after Egbert established his authority over the seven 
kingdoms, invaded the southern and eastern shores of England, and dur- 
ing fifty years made frequent incursions into the island, landing at various 



1 64 GREAT EVENTS 

points along the coast, maltreating and plundering the inhabitants, and 
finally establishing themselves in the middle parts. 

Alfred the Great, grandson of Egbert, came to the throne in 87X. He 
distinguished himself, in the fore part of his reign, by his contest with the 
Danes, whom he finally drove out of ]\is dominions. They defeated him 
at first, and forced him to seci^ete himself, which he did in the guise of a 
peasant. 

It is related that while thus disguised he begged shelter at the cabin o*" 
a swineherd, whose wife, on a certain occasion, set him to watch some 
cakes while baking ; his mind running on his own affairs, he allowed them 
to burn. The woman scolded him and beat him, telling him that though 
he was too lazy to turn them he would be ready enough to eat them. 

While in this concealment he learned that the Danes had been defeated 
in battle by the Earl of Devon. 

He entered the Danish camp in the character of a harper ; the Danes, 
delighted with his excellent music, gave him the freedom of the camp, and 
entertained him with generous hospitality. He spent some days with them, 
learned their plans, and saw their want of watchfulness. Having obtained 
the information he desired he stole away, collected his friends, besieged 
the Danes, and in fourteen days compelled them to surrender. 

The Danes, fifteen years after the last-mentioned defeat, appeared off 
the south-east coast in 330 ships. They landed their forces, and for three 
years plundered and ravaged the southern parts of the island. The skill 
and address of Alfred trmmphed again over these hardy pirates, and they 
were driven away. 

The remainder of Alfred's reign was free from war, and he devoted his 
energies to improving his government, and elevating the condition of his 
people. He divided the country into counties, prepared a code of laws, 
introduced trial by jury, established schools, and founded the university of 
Oxford. He patronized learning and the fine arts, encouraged agriculture, 
commerce, and manufactures, and cultivated among his subjects a love 
and respect for religion. 

Alfred's son Edward inherited the throne and reigned twenty-four years. 
The Danes gave him much trouble, they having been invited by Ethelwold, 
Edward's nephew, to aid him in his attempt to wrest the kingdom from 
Edward. 

Edward was succeeded by Athelstan, his son, who reigned sixteen years; 
he was a brave man and a skillful commander. He was succeeded by his 
brother Edmund, who reigned five years. He was killed in a scuffle with 
a notorious robber who had been banished, but had the assurance not only 
to reappear, but to be present at a feast. The king assaulted him, and 
the robber gave him a death- wound with his dagger. 



OF HISTORY. 



165 



Edmund's brother Edred succeeded him and sat on the throne nine 
years. The reign was disturbed by incursions of the Danes, whom Edred 
kept xmder. His successor was Edwy, who had a short and troubled 
reign of four years, succeeded by liis brother Edgar, who was a licentious, 
good-for-nothing fellow ; after a reign of sixteen years he was succeeded 
by his son Edward, who, after holding the throne for three years, was as- 
sassinated, and his step-mother was charged with the crime. 

He was succeeded by Ethelred,his half-brother, who when crowned was 
ten years old. Ethelred had a disturbed reign of thirty-eight years. The 
Danes, accompanied by the Norwegians, invaded England and committed 
acts of violence upon the inhabitants, plundered them, and burned their 
dwellings. The king, too feeble to drive out the invaders, offered them 
money to go away. They took the money but broke their promise, de- 
manding more money, which was again and again paid them. The Nor- 
wegians withdrew ; but the Danes, und'ir the leadership of Sweyn, con- 
tinued their devastations. 

Massacre of the Danes. — This feeble monarch conceived the project 
of assassinating all the Danes who were in the country, many of whom 
had married among the Saxons. The king''? body-guards were Norsemen; 
these he caused to be accused of a design u-^on his life, and at the festival 
of St. Brice, when the guurds, according to custom, had laid down their 
arms and entered the churches, the slaughter commenced. Among the 
most distinguished victims of this massacre was Gunhilda, the wife of a 
Saxon noble, and the sister o*" Sweyn. Sweyn was so enraged at this in- 
famous act, that he immediately prepared to take vengeance, and the next 
year landed on the island, took and held possei.sion of the eastern coast, 
and persuaded many of the English nobles to join him. The king fled to 
Normandy ; but in less than t-vo months Sweyn died, leaving his son 
Canute his heir. Ethelred retuned and war followed. The king was in 
London. Canute marched toward the city, but before he arrived there 
Ethelred died. 

Ethelred was succeeded by his con Edmund, surnamed the Ironside. 
Sweyn had- taken possession of ."11 the north-eastern ports of the island, 
and with the nobility who had joined him, was able to h'^ld them. Canute 
took the place of his father, and war, to obtain possession of the island, 
followed the ascension of Edmund. The same nobles who bad sworn 
allegiance to Sweyn supported his son end a settlement was made by 
which Canute was to hold the north-easterrx parts of the isbj^d and Ed- 
mund to rule the southern portion, including .London. About a month 
after this settlement was made Edmund was a.'^sassinated. having reigued 
seven months. Edmund's death left Canute king ot" England. "• 



1 66 GREAT EVENTS 

DANISH RULE. 
(From 1017 to 1041.) 

The Danes came to the throne in the person of Canute, the son of Sweyn, 
who reigned nineteen years. He began his reign by favoring his Danish 
followers ; to satisfy them he was obliged to tax the Saxons heavily; this 
soon made him unpopular, and he had the good sense to change his policy. 
He afterward took especial pains to secure the rights of all his subjects. 
His reign was characterized by good sense and vigor. 

An anecdote is told of him : while on the sea-shore with some of his flat- 
terers, he became sick of their absurd praises, and ordered a seat to be 
placed for him on the sand below high-water mark, and commanded the 
tide not to approach him. The wave came on and wet him ; he then re- 
buked his courtiers, and drew their attention to his feebleness in the 
hands of the Almighty. 

On the death of Canute, his son Harold ascended the throne, and ruled 
four years. He was remarkable for his great agility, and on that account 
was called the Harefoot. At his death his brother Hardicanute, or Ca- 
nute II., succeeded him and reigned two years. His death occurred at 
a banquet ; he was a dissipated man, addicted to great excesses. 

SAXON LINE OF KINGS RESTORED. 

(Reigned from 1041 to 1066.) 

On the death of Canute II., the Saxon rule was restored, in the per- 
son of Edward, who on account of his devotion was called the Con- 
fessor. He rendered himself hateful to the English, by inviting numbers 
of the decayed and needy nobility from France, to whom he gave the most 
important offices of honor and profit in the kingdom : at his death, after a 
reign of twenty-five years, Harold II. ascended the throne. William, 
Duke of Normandy, pretended that he had been appointed heir to the 
English throne by Edward, and sailed for England with an army of 60,000 
men. In the battle of Hastings Harold was slain, and with his death the 
Saxon line ceased. 

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE SAXONS. 

Houses. — Passing over five hundred years after the Romans withdrew 
their forces from the island, let us enter a dwelling of a Saxon noble. 
The structure is a heavy stone building, with a roof of tiles. 

Furniture. — The great hall is scantily furnished. A long table and 
some rude seats are on the floor. On the wall hang the implements and 
the trophies of war and the chase. On a raised place at the side arc tht 



OF HISTORY. ' 167 

accommodations for sleeping ; the beds consist of bags of straw. The 
covering is made up of the skins of sheep and the pelts of animals taken 
in hunting. 

Food and Manners at Table. — In the great hall the whole family 
dine. At the head of the table sits the master ; on each side, near the 
master, his wife, children, and guests are seated ; below them his retainers 
and upper servants. Around the extreme lower end are crowded slaves 
(not needed to serve the food), dogs, and hawks. The meats are brought 
in on spit3 and handed to the master, who with his dagger or sheath- 
knife cuts off a slice; it is then passed on, and each cuts off a piece. When 
it reaches -the slaves, dogs, and hawks, the imagination must be drawn 
upon to picture the scene. Pork was the principal flesh ; game and fish 
were also common at the tables of the earls and thanes. Bread and 
cakes of different kinds, made of wheat, rye, or oats, formed a large part of 
every meal. 

Farm-houses. — The farm-house differed from that of the thane. It 
was built of wood, usually of logs squared, seldom having more than one 
or at most two rooms. At its side or near was an inclosure with shelter 
for stock, which consisted of cattle, sheep, and poultry. An important 
appendage of the farm-house was the bee-shed, and near by were the gar- 
den and orchard. 

Homes of the Serfs. ^The cabin of the poor serf was usually of 
logs or stakes set in the ground and thatched with straw. The floor was 
clay, in the middle of which was a place for the fire ; the smoke after filling 
the room found its way through a hole in the roof. The furniture of the 
serf's cabin consisted of a few seats, usually blocks of wood, and a scanty 
supply of rude culinary vessels of wood and sun-baked pottery. Around 
the sides of the hut were the sleeping places, the beds consisting of straw 
and the skins of animals. 

The criminal code of the Saxons awarded death by hanging, for trea- 
son, and some other crimes. For slighter offenses men were chained, put in 
the stocks, scourged with knotted rods, and whips with leaded lashes. 
The yfw^ was the great engine of the Saxon rule. A fine was set upon 
every offense, from the knocking out of a front tooth to the commission of 
murder. For some crimes the ordeal of hot water or the red-hot bar was 
applied. In these tests the criminal entered the church, and after certain 
ceremonies, plunged his arm, xip to the elbow, into a tub of boiling water ; 
the priest then bound it up, and after three days it was unbound with 
great ceremony, and if the arm was sore, the man was pronounced guilty ; 
if not, he was innocent. Another test was to take three steps with a red- 
hot bar in his hand, with the same ceremonies and the same results 



1 68 GREAT EVENTS 



CHAPTER VI. 

NORMAN LINE OF KINGS (INCLUDING THE PLANTAGENETSj TO THE ASCEN- 
SION OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER, FROM IO66 TO 1 399 —333 YEARS. 

William the Conqueror— William 11.— Henry I.— Stephen— Privileges to Barons— Plantage- 
nets — Thomas a Beoket— Becket as Chancellor— Becket's Journey to Paris- Becket as 
Bishop— Becket's Flight to Franco— His Reconciliation— His Death— Richard Coeur de 
Lion— Delegates to Rale in his Absence— Sets oat for the Holy Land — Character as a 
King— John— Difficulty with the Barons— Demands of Barons— Magna Charta- Reign- 
ing Sovereigns in the Plantagenet Line— Jews— Black Plague— Order of the Garter- 
Wat Tyler. 

With William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, came another swarm 
of knights and needy gentry, among whom the best offices and the posts of 
honor were divided. William was a stern, brave man. He introduced 
the French language at court ; established the feudal system ; parceled 
out the land among the Norman gentry, and, to keep the Saxons in sub- 
mission, passed severe and oppressive laws. William reigned twenty-one 
years. A short time before his death he caused to be made a careful 
valuation of all the wealth in the kingdom, as well as the number of fami- 
lies, and the number of members in each family. This was called the 
Doomsday Book. 

One of the most oppressive acts of William was the laying waste of a 
large tract of country thirty miles in diameter, near his palace at Winches- 
ter, to make a hunting ground. From this tract he forcibly expelled the 
inhabitants, destroyed between twenty and thirty churches, burned thirty 
villages, and drove their occupants out without compensation. The tract 
thus laid waste was called the New Forest. 

William II., son of the Conqueror, succeeded his father, and reigned 
thirteen years. During the reign of William II. the first crusade was un- 
dertaken. William was more despotic than his father, was addicted to 
excess in eating and drinking, and was vindictive and cruel in his govern- 
ment. He was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. At 
his death his brother, Henry I., succeeded to the crown, and reigned thirty- 
five years. He commenced his rule by repealing some of the oppressive 
laws made during the last two reigns. Henry died without male heirs, 
his only son having been drowned in crossing the channel. After the 
death of his son, it is said, the king never smiled. He was fond of study, 
and was, on account of his scholarship, called Beauclerc (fine scholar). 
He was also denominated the Lion of Justice, because he punished offenders 
with severity. He was deceitful in his dealings, and lewd and dissipated 
in his habits He died in Normandy in the sixty-sixth year ot his age. 



OF HISTORY. 169 

Stephen, the Count of Blois, now claimed the Ihrone, and successfully 
disputed the right with Maude, the late king's daughter. He was crowned 
and reigned nineteen years. 

The most important event in his reign was the permission he gave the 
barons to rebuild and fortify their castles, which have been aptly called 
" nests of plunder." The reign was disturbed by civil strife, stirred up by 
the supporters of Maude, which lasted eighteen years, nearly the entire 
reign. Stephen, on account of the death of his eldest son, agreed to make 
Henry, Maude's son, his successor. This agreement put an end to the 
contest, and Stephen died in peace the same year. 

THE HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. 
(Held the throne from 1154 to 1485.) 

Henry 11., the first of the Plantagenets, commenced his reign under 
favorable circumstances. The acknowledged sovereign of a large portion 
of France, and in undisputed possession of the British crown, he was pi"e- 
pared to exercise a power which no contemporary sovereign could wield. 
On assuming the control of affairs in England, he set himself at once to 
redress grievances. The country for nearly twenty yeai^s had been in an 
unsettled state, overrun by troops of both parties ; mercenaries were quar- 
tered in every house, agricultural employments interrupted, and com- 
merce destroyed ; the masses had little to lose and everything to hope. 

The new king was heartily seconded in anything which promised to 
improve the affairs of the nation. 

He ordered the mercenaries out of the country, took possession of the 
crown lands, destroyed the baronial castles, which had been built thereon, 
and reduced the robber barons to submission, by compelling them to dis 
mantle their strongholds. 

Thomas a Becket as Chancellor. — The most important event of 
Heni-y's reign was the murder of Becket, who was the son of Gilbert 
Becket, Mayor of London. Thomas was educated not only in the learn- 
ing but in all the accomplishments of the day. Having been brought 
into notice by two learned Norman priests, he rose by successful steps 
to the chancellorship. While holding this office his mode o' living was 
extravagantly sumptuous. 

The king was careless with regard to his hospitality, and Becket did 
the honors of the nation by keeping open house, especially on feast days. 

When sent to Paris to arrange for the future marriage of the king's son, 
then in his eighth year, to Louis's three-year-old daughter, the magnificence 
of his train astonished the wondering Frenchmen, who exclaimed, " If 
the chancellor of the king of England travels in such state, what must be 
the retinue of the king himself? " 



lyo 



GREAT EVENTS 



Becket as Archbishop. — The Archbishop of Canterbury died ; Becket 
was appointed to succeed him. As soon as he entered upon his duties 
he changed his mode of life to tlie most rigid simplicity and abstemious- 
ness. He ate bread and drank only water, and wore sackcloth instead of 
linen. 

When he became bishop, the clergy were contending for certain privi- 
leges and exemptions which the king denied them. Becket took the side 
of the Church, a long contest went on, and the bishop was obliged to 
flee ; he crossed the channel in a small boat and spent six years in 
France. At the end of that time Henry, through the mediation of the 
French king, became reconciled. Becket returned to England, and pro- 
ceeded to excommunicate three bishops. When news of this came to the 
king's ears, he flew into a rage and exclaimed, " Is there no one, among 
the cowards that eat my bread, who dares deliver me from this disorderly 
priest ? " 

Becket's Murder. — A short time after this imprudent speech of the 
king, four knights entered the bishop's palace and demanded the restora- 
tion of the excommunicated bishops. Becket refused, the knights rushed 
out for their arms, the door was shut upon them. Becket went into the 
church, the knights followed him to the altar, and again repeated their 
demand. The bishop again refused, and fell beneath the sword of one of 
his murderers. A piece of his skull was chipped off by a sword cut, and 
the exposed brain was scooped out with the point of a sword and plas- 
tered on the altar steps. 

The king is said to have repented in great bitterness the consequences 
of his rash speech, which his knights regarded as a command, and as a 
mark of repentance caused himself to be scourged while kneeling at 
Becket's grave. 

Henry died of a fever said to have been brought on by finding the 
name of his favorite son John among a list of the names of rebels pre- 
sented to him for pardon. 

He was proud and ambitious, plausible and winning in his manners, 
but deceitful and treacherous in his acts. Richard Coeur de Lion suc- 
ceeded his father. 

Richard, however, had no ambition to rule England. He was carried 
away with a desire to wrest Jerusalem from the hands of the Turks. He 
appointed two bishops guardians of his English kingdom, gave up his 
claim to the crown of Scotland for money, sold the offices in his gift, and 
emptied the English treasury, to provide funds for equipping his crusad- 
ing army, 

All things being in readiness he set out with Philip of France for the 
Holy Land, Having endured indescribable hardships, they came in 



OF HISTORY. 171 

sight of Jerusalem. But disease, famine, and the sword had done their 
work so thoroughly that Richard was obliged to turn away without en- 
tering the walls of the coveted city. 

His treasures dissipated, and with a mere fragment of his army, he turned 
in sadness toward home. He embarked his troops on the Mediterranean, 
and suffered shipwreck. He was cast on the shore of the Gulf of Venice, 
and attempted to cross the continent, in the disguise of a returning pil- 
grim. At Vienna his true character was discovered, by the circumstance 
that his page -wort gloves, and he was imprisoned. 

He was, after eighteen months* confinement, discovered and ransomed 
by the payment of 100,000 marks ($322,000). Richard reigned ten years. 
His death was caused by an arrow shot from a baronial castle which he 
was besieging in France. 

Having no heir, he bequeathed his throne to John, his brother, who 
was consequently proclaimed king (1199). 

He proved to be unfit for a ruler ; he was cruel, tyrannical, and oppressive. 
He dispossessed and robbed the clergy, demanded bonds and hostages 
from the barons, defied the power of the pope, devastated and plundered 
his own dominions, imprisoned his subjects and starved them to death, 
in some cases in rooms underneath those in which he and his friends 
feasted. The pope interfered, and laid the country under interdict, and 
for more than five years no religious services were held in the churches, 
and the dead were buried without ceremony. In 1215, sixteen years after 
John's coronation, the barons, rendered desperate by oppression, met and 
demanded of John a redress of grievances. The king temporized, but 
the barons were firm, and in June of that year they compelled him to 
sign Magna Charta. 

This celebrated paper secured the rights of all classes, and was the 
foundation of that personal liberty of which the Englishman this day 
justly boasts. 

It secured, first, the rights of the clergy ; second, rights of barons ; 
third, the rights of all below the barons in rank. It secured to the people, 
both men of rank and commoners, the right to be tried in the court of 
common pleas (formerly the courts were called the king's courts and 
were held where the king was ; this was a burden, as the king was 
sometimes in France and sometimes in England, hence to attend court 
was in some cases ruinously expensive). It guaranteed that justice should 
not be sold ; that at least two judges should hold courts quarterly in each 
shire ; that freemen should be tried by their peers ; and finally that no 
villain should be unreasonably fined. This the king reluctantly signed. 

The establishment of a rule that a citizen should have a fair trial before 
his peers is not only a great event in the history of England, but one of 



172 GREA T E VENTS 

the most important events in the world's history. It is what has secured 
to the British subject, and to the citizen of the United States, the broadest 
personal liberty. 

The number of reigning sovereigns in the early Plantagenet line was 
eight, as follows : 

Henry II. occupied the throne thirty-five years. 

Richard I., Henry's son, reigned ten years. 

John, Henry's son, reigned seventeen years. 

Henry III., John's son, crowned at nine years of age, reigned fifty-six 
years. 

Edward I., son of Henry III., reigned thirty-five years. 

Edward II., son of Edward I., reigned twenty years. 

Edward III., son of Edward II., reigned fifty years. 

Richard II., grandson of Edward III., reigned twenty-two years. 

The Jews, during the reign of the early Plantagenets, had a varied ex- 
perience. William the Conqueror took them under his protection, having 
invited them to emigrate from the continent. Henry II. allowed them to 
purchase a cemeteiy, for the burial of their dead, near the city where they 
resided. Richard I. pretended to protect them, but did it in a doubtful 
manner. John, Richard's brother, robbed them. Henry III. taxed them. 
Arid there gradually arose a feeling of hostility to them which ended in the 
enactment of oppressive laws, bitter persecution, and their expulsion, in 
large numbers, from the island. 

The Black Plague, a malady which had its origin in the crowded, filthy 
lanes of Asiatic cities, found its way into Europe, and swept one-third of 
the entire population into the grave. In the city of London, during the 
years of 1361-2, half the inhabitants died, all employments were arrested, 
the courts were suspended, and Parliament did not meet for two years. 

The Order of the Garter was established in the reign of Edward III. 
He gave his garter as a token at the battle of Crecy, and in commemora- 
tion of the victory he established an order of knighthood, the badge of 
which was the garter, a strip of blue velvet with a golden border. At the 
same battle cannon were first used. 

Wat Tyler. — A popular rising occurred during the reign of Richard 
II., which shows the condition of the people at that time. The treasury of 
the nation had been drained by foreign wars and the extravagance of the 
court. There was no way to replenish the royal purse but to tax the peo 
pie. For the purpose of supporting the British possessions in France, a 
poll tax was levied upon every person in the kingdom who was above the 
age of fifteen. This tax, which was only about twenty-five cents for each 
person, produced a growl, which, though concealed, was an indication of 
the temj)er of the burdened people. A tax-collector insulted the daughter 



OF HISTORY. 



^11 



of Wat Tyler, which so enraged her father that he struck him dea J with 
his hammer. 

This act drew together a few workmen ; the news spread, and the mob 
increased till thousands of the working class crowded the streets and high- 
ways, and from all directions the thoroughfares were thronged with angry, 
threatening men, pressing toward London ; when they reached the city 
their numbers exceeded 100,000. They were led by Wat Tyler, Jack 
Strav, and a priest named John Ball. Having reached the city they de- 
manded an interview with the king. Entering London they plundered 
and set fire to the houses of the wealthy, committing murder and other ex- 
cesses. They demanded of the king that slavery should be abolished ; 
that the i-ental of good land should be eight cents per acre ; that the serfs 
should be allowed to buy and sell as freemen, and that all past offenses 
should be pardoned ; to all of which the king acceded. Tyler was not 
satisfied with these concessions, and sent back three times making ad- 
ditional demands. 

One of the demands was that all the lawyers in the realm should be ex- 
ecuted. 

At Smithfield the king met about 20,000 of the insurgents, headed by 
Tyler, who rode up to the king's party, and asked, in an insolent manner, 
for the sword of one of the king's attendants. For this insolence the mayor 
of London struck him on the head with his sword and knocked him from 
his horse. While on the ground his body was pierced with a sword. At 
this the mob made ready to attack, but the king, then only fifteen, riding 
up to the front, said, " I will be your leader, follow me." At once the 
fury of the mob was abated and the rebellion ended. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. HOUSE OF LANCASTER, FROM 1 399 
TO I461 — 62 YEARS. HOUSE OF YORK, FROM I461 TO I485 — 24 YEARS. 

Henry IV.— Henry V.— Henry VI.— Siege of Orleans— Joan of Arc— Her History— Her Sno- 
cess— Her Fate— House of York- Battle of Tawton— Edward V.— Richard UI.— His 
Character. 

The house of Lancaster succeeded the early Plantagenet line; the num- 
ber of reigning sovereigns was three, as follows : 

Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, reigned fourteen years. 

Henry V., the son of Henry IV., reigned nine years. 

Henry VI., reigned thirty-nine years. 

In the beginning of the reign of the Lancaster line severe laws were 



174- 



GREAT EVENTS 



passed against the Lollards, and one was condemned to be burned, the first 
English martyr to religious opinions. During the reign of Henry VI. a 
war with France was carried on, and Orleans, a city loyal to France, was 
besieged for many months, when Joan of Arc, an uneducated peasant 
■girl, presented herself to the French king, declaring that she, in a vision, 
had been informed that she was to lead the French army to victory against 
the English ; so importunate was she that the king was convinced, and 
she was put in command of the army and led it to victory. 

Having seen the king restored, she desired to be dismissed. But the 
French commanders, whose laurels she had cast in the shade, treacherously 
put her in the hands of the English, who, in the barbarism and supersti- 
tion of the age, burned her for a witch. 

She was a most wonderful personage ; she inspired the French with 
superhuman courage, and paralyzed the English soldiery with a supersti- 
tious fear. Though the English burned her, the influence of her courage 
remained in the French army, and swept the British power from the con« 
tinent. In less than four years all the English possessions in France were 
relinquished except Calais. 

During the reign of Henry VI., the last of the house of Lancaster, the 
War of the Roses commenced. Henry became insane, and the Duke of 
York assumed the reins of government. On the recovery of the king the 
duke refused to lay down his authority, and civil war ensued. The house 
of Lancaster wore as an ensign a red rose, the house of York a white one; 
hence the war which was carried on between these two houses was de- 
nominated the War of the Roses. 

In the reign of Henry VI. Halley's comet was discovered ; in 1456 glass 
was first manufactured in England. On the continent the art of printing 
was brought into practical use. 

THE HOUSE OF YORK. 
(Ruled from 1461 to 1485.) 

The house of York reigned twenty-four years, and, like the house of 
Lancaster, had but three kings. Edward IV., the first of them, secured 
the throne at the bloody battle of Tawton. Edward's army was 60,000 
strong, while that of the White Roses numbered about 50,000; when the 
battle ended more than 30,000 lay dead upon the field. Edward came to 
the throne by a sanguinary contest, and his reign throughout was one of 
strife and bloodshed. 

At the death of Edward, his son Edward V. (then thirteen years old) was 
proclaimed king ; but his uncle Richard, known in history as Richard III., 
declared the marriage of the late king illegal, and his children not heirs to 
the thronf» 



OF HISTORY. 175 

He persuaded some of his friends to urge him to accept the crown, 
which he pretended to take rehictantly. Young Edward, after reigning 
about two and a half months, was, with his brother, imprisoned in the 
tower, and soon after murdered by Richard's orders. Richard is also ac- 
cused of poisoning his wife that he might marry his niece, the daughter of 
Edward, whose brothers he had just murdered. 

The crimes and tyranny of Richard raised a powerful party against him, 
which, under the leadership of Henry, Earl of Richmond, broke into open 
rebellion. The earl headed the insurgent army and met Richard at Bos- 
worth, where in a fierce battle, fighting with desperation, Richard was slain. 

Richard had a withered arm which had been put out at the shoulder in 
his infancy ; this caused one shoulder to be a little higher than the other, 
a deformity which gave him the name of crook-back. He was of small 
stature and spare, but was by no means the monstrosity Shakespeare 
described. He is represented by historians &.s a man so blinded by ambi- 
tion as to commit the most unnatural crimes. He was fond of learning, 
bestowed gifts upon the universities, and encouraged printing, protected 
commerce, and established a system of couriers for conveying news from 
point to point, and though unscrupulous and ambitious, the blemishes in 
his character have no doubt been greatly exaggerated. 

LIFE UNDER THE NORMAN RULE. 

The Normans established the feudal system, which greatly altered the 
habits of life among the nobles, and especially the mode of building. 
The feudal system introduced a more decided distinction in caste or rank 
in society. 

It fostered chivalry or knighthood. The country was dotted all ovei 
with castles, the homes of the barons, who were petty princes, frequently 
so powerful as to give the king much trouble, by resisting his power. 

Castles. — The feudal castle was constructed with great strength, out- 
side of which was built a high wall ; around the outside of the wall ran a 
deep ditch kept full of water. 

The inclosure was entered over a drawbridge through a strong gate. 
Near the castle were the houses of mechanics, tradesmen, and artisans, 
butchers, bakers, tailors, and shoemakers, who lived by the patronage of 
the owner of the castle, their dwellings and shops making in some cases 
large villages. 

Food and Manners, at the Table. — The tables of the barons were 
supplied with beef, mutton, veal, pork, game, and fish ; bread, cakes, 
pastry, and foreign wines. The Normans were more highly cultured than 
the Saxons, observed a studied etiquette at table, and their intercourse was 
more delicate and refined. The middle classes drank homemade ale, and 

8* 



176 GREAT EVENTS 

lived principally upon bread, butter, cheese, milk, pulse, and swine's flesli. 
The lower classes seldom ate meat of any kind, and lived in the same 
rude cabin which sheltered them during the Saxon rule. 

The dress of the Normans differed from that of the Saxons. The Nor- 
man gallant wore long hair, and was closely shaven. His upper garment 
was a loose doublet reaching below the knee, fastened about the waist 
by an embroidered girdle. Over this was carelessly thrown a short cloak 
trimmed with lace and costly fur. His shoes had long pointed toes turned 
up, and were attached to the knees with gold or silver chains. Upon his 
head he wore a velvet bonnet. 

Dress of the Serfs. — In extreme contrast to this was the dress of 
the Saxon serf His coat and breeches consisted of untanned hide, his 
feet protected by sandals of boarskin ; on his neck was a collar of brass 
upon which was engraved his master's name. 

The dress of the ladies cortsisted of an undergown of silk. Over this 
they wore a loose wide-sleeved robe, which reached to their feet. 

Life in the Latter Part of the Norman Rule. — Passing over a 
period of three hundred years, we find a marked change in the mode of 
life and the social condition of the people. 

The higher classes have attained to more refinement, and the mode of 
cooking has been greatly improved. 

" Glass windows, earthen vessels, coal fire, and candle-light have 
greatly increased the comforts of their homes." Their houses have been 
much improved by roofing with tiles instead of straw. Their dwellings 
and other buildings are constructed with more taste and ornament. The 
style of architecture for public buildings and the residences of the 
wealthy is the decorated Gothic. 

Furnitui-e however has changed but little, and is very scanty. 

The house of a well-to-do farmer at this period had two to three beds, 
a table, a few stools, or long benches, a brass pot in which the cooking 
was done, and a large dish to hold the food upon the table, from which 
each helped himself with his wooden spoon. 

Price of Labor. — The cost of labor at that period was, for haymakers 
two cents a day, laborers two and a half cents, carpenters four cents, and 
masons six cents. No mechanics were allowed to work except in their 
own neighborhood, unless by special permit. 

The dress of the fashionable young men was a coat of blue and white 
with long sleeves, trowsers reaching down to the knee, striped or spotted 
stockings, and shoes with long turned-up toes fastened by golden chains 
to the belt. They wore long curled beards, hair tied behind in a braid, 
and the head covered with a close-fitting embroidered silk hood, tied 
under the chin 



OF HISTORY. 



177 



The fashionable lady, with two daggers in her belt, rode to the tourna- 
ment or the chase upon a fiery steed. In-doors, a lofty head-dress, two 
feet high, ornamented with gay ribbons, a many-colored tunic, and a long 
trained skirt completed her attire. 

Throughout the next century, during the reign of the houses of York 
and Lancaster, very little advancement was made in civilization. The 
feudal system had been destroyed, and the manor house, built of wood, 
highly decorated, had taken the place of the stone castle of the Norman ; 
but no change took place in the form or character of the farm-house or 
cottage. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOUSE OF TUDOR, REIGNED I18 YEARS — FROM I485 TO 1603. 

Henry Vn.— Character— Great Harry— Henry VIII.— Henry's Wives— Divorce— Monasteries 
— Edward VL— Lady Jane Gray — Mary — Elizabeth. 

Henry VII., the first of the Tudor kings, reigned twenty-four years. 
He was not a warlike man, and it has been said of him that he was a bet- 
ter merchant than king. He had many difficulties to surmount, as he was 
not the lineal heir to the throne. Having secured quiet in the state, he 
turned his attention to the accumulating of money. He left in the treasury 
at his death $10,000,000. During his reign a mammoth ship, the " Great 
Harry," was built ; this great ship was the foundation of the British navy. 
The most important event of the reign of Henry VII. was the discovery 
of America. 

In the spring of 1509 Henry died, with consumption, at the age of fifty- 
four. His leading characteristic was a love of money. He was a brave 
man in the face of danger, and though not a great statesman he favored 
the passage of some excellent laws, one of which empowered the nobles to 
sell their estates without regard to entail; this weakened the power of the 
nobles and elevated the commons. 

Henry VIII. succeeded his father on the throne, and the events of his 
reign of thirty-eight years would fill a volume. He was married six times. 
Two of his wives he divorced ; he beheaded two ; one died, and his last 
one survived him. 

His first wife was a Spanish lady (Catherine of Aragon) ; from her he 
wished to be divorced, but the Pope would not consent. Henry com- 
pelled his bishops to divorce him, and caused the Parliament (which was 
convened in 1529 and sat seven years) to forbid all appeals to Rome, to 
empower the king to appoint prelates, and to proclaim the King of Eng 



178 GREAT EVENTS 

land supreme head of the Church in his own realm, by which act the 
Church of England was cut loose from the control of the Pope, and an 
independent establishment was formed. 

The great Reformation was then in progress, and, without intending it, 
Henry dealt a terrible blow at the power of Rome. 

Soon after, his divorce he commenced a crusade against the monasteries 
which at that time were very numerous. He charged them with being 
nurseries of corruption and political intrigue. 

The real object, however, was to get possession of the wealth and 
treasures of which they were the custodians. 

The religious houses, as the monasteries were called, not only possessed 
great wealth, but were the depositories and conservatories of the most 
valuable works of art in the nation. 

Their chapels and churches were adorned with stained-glass windows, 
and ornamented with choice specimens of sculpture and paintings. These 
houses had contained the best schools of the nation ; they were the hospi- 
tals for the sick, and the lodging-houses of the traveler. 

But before Henry's avarice they disappeared. Their inmates were 
dispersed and set adrift without means of support, and the buildings 
themselves .were demolished or unroofed, in some cases turned into pig- 
styes or places for herding cattle. 

During the reign of Henry VIII. the English Bible was printed. He 
was a promoter of education, founded Trinity College, and made some 
pretensions to learning. He wrote a reply to Luther, for which the Pope 
pronounced him Defender of the Faith, and the sovereigns of England to 
this day bear the title. 

At the death of Henry VIII. he was succeeded by his son Edward VI., 
who was in his eleventh year. He reigned six years. His failing health 
gave his advisers great anxiety, and a short time before he died he was 
persuaded by the Duke of Northumberland to settle the crown upon Lady 
Jane Gray, and to declare his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, illegitimate. 
Soon after this act he died. 

Notwithstanding young Edward declared Lady Jane Gray queen, his 
sister Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, ascended the throne ; her 
five years' reign was characterized by her efforts to restore the Roman 
Catholic religion ; by the execution of Lady Jane Gray, and the burning 
of Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, and Archbishop Cranmer, and the taking of 
Calais by the French. 

Mary died in 1558, having reigned five years, at which time Philip, her 
hasband, was King of Spain. 



OF HISTORY. 



ELIZABETH CAME TO THE THRONE 1 5 58. 



179 



Elizabeth, on the death of her sister Mary, ascended the throne, and 
reigned forty-four years. She possessed high talent as a ruler, and at 
once set about the restoration of Protestantism, which her sister Mary had 
overthrown. Elizabeth was aided by an able statesman, William Cecil 
(Lord Burleigh). In 1562, four years after her ascension, Cranmer's forty- 
two articles were abridged, and the thirty-nine articles, upon which the 
English Church was founded in its present form, were adopted instead. 

The great event of this reign was the destruction of the Spanish fleet, 
the Invincible Armada. Philip of Spain made proposals of marriage to 
Elizabeth which she rejected. Stung by this refusal, and longing to 
destroy Protestantism, he determined to conquer England. In 1588, 132 
large ships sailed from Lisbon, to invade England; besides their crews, 
this Armada bore 2,630 brass cannon and 20,000 troops. At the same 
time the Duke of Parma, the great soldier of that age, moved an army of 
40,000 to Dunkirk to aid in the invasion. 

The English people, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, of all 
ranks, rose up and presented offerings of money and stores, to prepare for 
defense. The navy then was made up of 36 sail of small vessels ; but by 
the united efforts of the people, in a marvelously short time the British 
navy was increased to 191 vessels, and the army to 130,000 men. 

The Armada was found in the channel by the English Admiral Lord 
Howard of Effingham, drawn up in the form of a half moon. The English 
joined battle, but kept at a distance, to prevent boarding. The Spaniards 
fired heavy guns ; but, on account of the greater height of the gun-decks of 
the Arnjada, the shot was aimed too high. The Spanish Admiral moved 
up the channel and anchored off Calais. At night the English sent eight 
fire-ships into the Spanish fleet, and in the confusion fell upon it and de- 
stroyed twelve large vessels, and set the whole to flight. The wind was 
unfavorable for returning by the strait, and the storms of the north seas 
completed the destruction of this Invincible Armada, Since that day 
the English navy has ruled the seas. 

Elizabeth was haughty and imperious, but commanded the respect of 
foreign states as well as the love of her own people. In dress she was 
extravagant (three thousand dresses were found in her wardrobe at her 
death), but in other matters prudent, and her government was not an ex- 
pensive one. Many large debts, the legacy of her father, were paid off 
during her reign. 

Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sydney, and Lord Bacon flourished in this 
reign. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, persecutions of the Protestants 
in France, and the cruelties practiced in the Netherlands, drove capitalists 



l8o GREAT EVENTS 

and many of the best artisans and workmen from the continent into Eng 
land — by which many branches of industry were greatly improved. 

LIFE IN THE TUDOR PERIOD. 

The architecture of the Tudor reign was highly ornate. The mansions 
and villas of the great and wealthy were of brick or stone, and were con- 
structed more with regard to comfort and convenience than formerly. 
The hovels of the poor however underwent no improvement. 

Erasmus, in the reign of Henry VIII., described the poor man's abode 
as a hovel made of hurdles, fastened together with twigs, and plastered 
with clay, the roof thatched with straw. In the middle was a hole through 
which the smoke from the fire lit in the centre of the floor found its 
way ; the floor itself, which was made of clay, strewed with rushes, under 
which lay unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments of 
bones, spittle, and many other nasty things. The discomfort and un- 
healthfulness of such dwellings can only be imagined. 

Dwellings. — In the days of Elizabeth the houses of the higher classes 
were built of oak, and great improvements were made in the furniture. 
The wooden plate and platter were changed for fine earthenware, pewter, 
and silver, and spoons made of silver and of tin came into use. 

Food. — During the Tudor reign, many new fmits were introduced into 
the English garden, which increased the variety of food. Wheat bread 
was found upon the tables of the wealthy. Potatoes were introduced 
from America, hops were grown, and tobacco was first used in Eng- 
land. 

Cost of Food. — Price of beef and mutton, in- the days of Henry 
VIII., was one cent per pound, veal and pork one and a half cents. 

The old custom of dining in the great hall with all the servants was 
still kept up by the nobles and wealthy. Some distance down the table 
stood a large silver salt-cellar ; between this and the head of the table the 
master, with his wife, children, and guests, sat ; below were first his re- 
tainers, next upper servants, and finally the menials and slaves. The 
food was graded accordingly; for the master and his immediate family, 
the wheaten loaf and delicate dishes were prepared ; while below, coarse 
bread and salt meat were provided. 

The dress of the country people changed very little during the reigns 
of the Roses and the Tudors, but the fashion at court underwent fre- 
quent changes. Henry VIII., as he advanced in years, grew fat, and the 
members of his court stuffed their clothes to appear like him. 

During the reign of Elizabeth the fashion of wearing linen ruffles on 
the neck and wrists was introduced, and silk stockings were first worn by 
this queen 



OF HISTORY. i8l 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HOUSE OF STUART, INCLUDING THE COMMONWEALTH, III YEARS 
— FROM 1603 TO 1 7 14. 

James 1.— Plots to dethrone James— Gunpowder Plot— Bible Translated— Charles I.— Diffl- 
culties with Parliament— Condition of Puritan? —Long Parliament— Cavaliers— Eound- 
heads— Commons— King flies— War between the King and People— Presbyterians-Trial 
of the King — His Execution — Character— Cromwell — Commonwealth — Richard Cromwell — 
Society of Friends— Condition of the Commonwealth after Richard Cromwell Resigned- 
Charles II.— Great Plague— Great Fire— Popish Plot— Character of Charles II.— James 
n.— William of Orange— Mary— Death of Mary- Death of William— Anne— Union of 
England and Scotland. 

The House of Stuart ascended the throne in the person of James I., 
who reigned twenty-two years. He entered upon the government with 
the firm belief in the divine right and absolute power of the king. He was 
vain in his bearing, tyrannical, and self-sufficient, and soon became un- 
popular. A conspiracy was formed to depose him and place his cousin 
Arabella on the throne. The plot was discovered and the leaders were 
executed. 

The king had not worn the crown two years before another plot was 
detected. A few Roman Catholics, disappointed in not obtaining privi- 
leges, conceived a project to destroy both the king and his Parliament by 
placing thirty-six barrels of gunpowder under the Parliament house, which 
they intended to explode when the king and his Parliament were in ses- 
sion. The explosion was intrusted to Guido Falks (a Spanish soldier of 
fortune), who, at a proper time, was to fire a slow-match. The diabolical 
plot was discovered, and the day before he was to fire the mine Falks was 
arrested; when asked what the powder was there for, he replied, " To 
blow Scotchmen back to Scotland." He was executed, and all his asso- 
ciates who were not killed in making the arrest shared his fate. 

Though all the persons engaged in this plot, known as the Gunpowder 
Plot, were Roman Catholics, the Catholics generally throughout the king- 
dom had no part in it, and knew nothing about it. 

During the reign of James a new translation of the Bible was made ; it 
was done under the patronage of the king by a number of the best scholars 
of the day ; it was published in 1611, and is the translation now used by 
Protestants throughout the world. 

Charles, James's second son, succeeded his father, under the title of 
Charles I. 

Charles began to exercise absolute power in levying taxes, and burden- 
ing the people. Parliament remonstrated and the king dissolved them. In 



1 82 GREAT EVENTS 

1628 he called his third Parliament. They asked him to sign a bill of rights 
which bound him to levy no taxes without consent of Parliament ; he con- 
sented reluctantly, and soon showed them that he did not intend to keep 
his promise ; a contention ensued, he dissolved the Parliament, and re- 
fused to convene it during the next eleven years. 

The Puritans were robbed, tortured, and mutilated ; many left the king 
dom for the wilds of America. The king saw that the best blood of thr. 
nation was leaving the country, and interposed to stop emigration, and 
forbade the ship to sail in which Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell had taken 
passage. 

As this reign was noted for having eleven years without a Parliament, 
so it was alike remarkable for the long Parliament, which commenced in 
1640 and sat for nineteen years. Two parties now arose : one composed 
of nobles, gentry, and the clergy, who favored the king, and were called 
Cavaliers, from their fine bearing and skillful horsemanship ; the other 
party got the name of Roundheads, from the practice of the Puritans in 
cutting the hair short, thereby exposing the shape of the head. 

The king's party was conservative, the other radical. The Conserva- 
tives desired to preserve the laws and customs which had promoted peace 
and prosperity ; the Radicals advocated the adoption of new methods, 
that greater liberty and prosperity might be attained. The contest between 
the king and Parliament went on. 

The commons drew up a remonstrance which complained of the king's 
bad government. The king made fair promises, but ordered the arrest of 
his most active opponents. The House refused to allow their arrest ; he 
sent a detachment of troops to arrest them, but they had fled. This enter- 
ing of the house of the nation's representatives with an armed force was 
regarded as an insult, and raised a storm of excitement and opposition. 
The king fled to York. For months aff"airs remained the same ; messages 
passed between the king and the Parliament ; finally the commons re- 
quired the king to give up the control of the army ; this he indignantly 
refused, and the civil war began (1642), the commons against the king 
and his party. 

For four years the war went on with varying success. The king, having 
no power to raise money, was finally compelled to surrender, and gave 
himself up to the Scottish army. May, 1646. The Parliament offered the 
Scots $2,000,000 to give up the king's person, which they accepted. The 
king escaped to the Isle of Wight ; Parliament opened negotiations, but 
the king refusing to comply with required conditions, was dethroned, 
January 13, 1648. 

The Presbyterians in Parliament were conservative, and being in the 
ascendency, annulled the former acts, and reopened a correspondence with 



OF HISTORY. 



^83 



the king. The Radicals, with Cromwell at their head, then surrounded 
the house of Parliament, and prevented the Presbyterians from entering. 
The number of members was thus reduced to about fifty, who ordered a 
trial of the king for treason, and a court was constituted to try him, com- 
posed not of peers, according to law and custom, but made up of army 
officers and commoners. 

The king with great dignity refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of 
the court. But the farce went on, and after seven days, he was con- 
demned to be beheaded. Three days after sentence, January 30, 1649, 
the first and only king of England who was ever executed was brought 
to the block. 

Charles I. was an affectionate husband, and a kind father ; as a king 
and a statesman he was vacillating, weak, and insincere. He was wedded 
to Episcopacy, and possessed a strong tendency to absolutism. But his 
want of honesty and his double-dealing cost him his kingdom and his 
head. 

The radical party, with Oliver Cromwell at its head, formed a common- 
wealth. Cromwell being at the head of the army, really controlled the 
nation. He quarreled with the Parliament, and encouraged his officers 
to ask for back pay ; when this act was about to be pronounced treason 
he entered the house and dissolved it at the point of the bayonet. Then 
putting himself at the head of the nation, he attempted to form a Par- 
liament ; but in this he was unsuccessful, and he ruled alone for five years 
(1653 to 1658), when dying, he appointed his son his successor as Lord 
Protector. 

Cromwell was without doubt a great man as to capabilities, especially 
as a soldier, and his most bitter enemies accord him the character of a 
devoted Christian. 

Richard Cromwell succeeded his father as Lord Protector, but he found 
his talents as a soldier inadequate to control the army ; hence he was un- 
able to fill his father's place, and in five months resigned. 

During the commonwealth, the Society of Friends (called Quakers) 
arose. Their founder was George Fox. The Friends have always sus- 
tained the character of industrious, thrifty, orderly citizens. 

Richard Cromwell resigned, and the commonwealth was without a 
head. A new Parliament was convened, and was made up of Cavaliers and 
Presbyterians ; this body, not having been called by the king, could hardly 
be considered a Parliament. One day during the session of this body 
General Monk announced that a messenger from the king (Charles II., 
son of the beheaded monarch) was waiting without ; the news proved 
most acceptable. A hearty invitation was sent to Charles to return to 
his country, which he gladly accepted. 



1 84 GREAT EVENTS 

Charles II. was proclaimed king, and his throne restored to him May 
1660. This restoration was received with great rejoicing. Charles be- 
gan by abolishing the tenure of lands by knight service, the only remain- 
ingfeature of feudalism. But he was a dissolute man with extravagant 
habits. He favored Episcopacy, and persecuted the Dissenters and 
Presbyterians, taxed them to support the Established Church, quartered 
soldiers on them, forbade them to attend worship except in the Epis- 
copal Church, and subjected them to cruel torture for disobedience. 

During the reign of Charles II. the great Plague appeared in London 
(1665) ; during the year about 100,000 persons died ; all who were able fled 
from the city, and grass grew in the most public streets. In the following 
year (1666) the great fire occurred, lasting three days, consuming 13,200 
dwellings, and nearly 100 churches. Milton's Paradise Lost was pub- 
lished. 

The Papist plot was discovered. Titus Oates, a profligate man, came 
forward and swore that he had discovered a plot among the Papists to 
burn London and massacre all Protestants, and brought others to testify 
to the truth of his story. The state of the public mind was ripe for ex- 
citement on this subject and great numbers of Roman Catholics were 
executed. It was afterward discovered that there had been no founda- 
tion for Oates's infamous story. 

Charles II. died at the age of fifty-five, after a reign of twenty-five years. 
Unlike his father he was a dissolute, vile man. He was called the Merry 
Monarch. His cheerful, companionable manners are said to have been 
the only redeeming feature in his character. 

James II., the brother of the late king, is said to have met in council as 
king in less than an hour after the death of Charles. He promised to 
sustain the laws and uphold the Church of England, but failed to keep 
any of his promises. He labored to restore the Romish faith, and he so 
disappointed and oppressed the Protestants that they invited William of 
Orange to come to their rescue. William collected an army in Plolland 
and landed at Torbay (1688) with a force 15,000 strong. He marched into 
the country, and the nobility, who were heartily sick of James, flocked to 
his standard, and James fled. William called a council^ and he and Maiy 
his wife were declared King and Queen of England, the succession to 
fall on Mary's children. 

William did not find himself on a bed of roses. His reign proved not 
to be a peaceful one. He had war with France, and risings and plots at 
home to restore James. He was an earnest, active sovereign, and a skill- 
ful commander, and by great activity kept his enemies in submission. In 
1694, six years after her coronation, Mary died of small-pox. This death 
raised the hopes of the friends of James, and gave William great anxiety 



OF HISTORY. 



185 



On the 8th day of March, 1702, eight years after the death of his queen, 
William fell from his horse and fractured his clavicle, and this apparently 
trifling injury caused his death. 

Anne, the sister of the late queen, ascended the throne on the death of 
William, and reigned twelve years. She was not a sovereign of great 
ability, but she had able counselors, and possessed the wisdom to be 
guided by them. 

During her reign a complete union of England and Scotland was estab- 
lished, and the treaty of Utrecht was signed. Anne, the last of the Stuarts, 
died of apoplexy in 1 7 14; she was the mother of nineteen children, all 
of whom died before her. Addison, Steele, Swift, and Pope flourished in 
this reign. 

SOCIETY IN THE REIGN OF THE STUARTS. 

The reign of the Stuarts, including the time of the commonwealth, gave 
rise to very little advancement in civilization. 

The country gentlemen were without education or culture ; they sel- 
dom left their own immediate neighborhoods, amusing themselves in 
the sports of the field, assembling in the evening to drink strong beer and 
discuss the gossip of the neighborhood. The accomplishments of the ladies 
were made up of baking, pastry, cooking the meals for the family, spinning, 
and sewing. 

The country clergyman at this period ranked with an upper servant : 
in the home of the country gentleman or nobleman was a priest or chap- 
lain, who received for his services a home and a sum of money equal to 
fifty dollars. 

He took his wife from among his patron's servants or from a neighbor- 
ing kitchen. 

Those clergymen who had parishes earned their livelihood by tilling the 
land which belonged to the Church. Their children ranked with servants: 
their sons became farm laborers, and their daughters sought employment 
as chambermaids and sewing-girls. 

The income of a well-to-do farmer did not exceed $350 a year. Most 
of the laboring class in the country were farm hands, receiving a sum 
equal to $1.25 for a week's work, without food ; persons employed in fac- 
tories were paid $1.50 for a week's work. The food of the laboring class 
consisted of rye, barley, and oats, seldom flesh. One fifth of the whole 
population were paupers. 

Dress. — The dress of a fashionable young man was more elaborate 
and showy than in any previous period. 

It was made up of a tall hat, a feather on one side and a bunch of rib- 
bons on the other, his face spotted with black patches ; a long tress of hair 



1 86 GREAT EVENTS 

on each side of his head reached down his breast, tied at the ends with silk 
ribbons, and called love-locks ; he wore beard on the upper lip ; a broad 
collar turned over on his shoulders, edged with lace ; his sleeved vest was 
tight, the lower part unbuttoned, and his shirt appeared in a roll between 
his breeches and vest. 

He carried his cloak on his arm ; his breeches reached to the knee, 
where they terminated in points and gay ribbons ; his legs were encased 
in hose tied above the calf ; the tops of his boots were very large, fringed 
with lace, and shoved down to his spurs, and the feet of the boots two 
inches too long ; in his right hand he carried a stick, with which he toyed 
as he swaggered along the street, usually singing. 

The dress of a fine lady at this period was not complete till her 
face was ornamented with black patches. One is described as having her 
forehead ornamented with a patch cut in the shape of a coach, with a 
coachman, two horses at tandem, and- postilions ; on the right cheek, just 
below the outer corner of the eye, was a half moon ; on the other cheek 
another, but placed under the eye near the nose ; on the right side of her 
mouth she had a star, and on her chin a circle. A sarcastic ballad ap- 
peared about this time ridiculing this absurd custom. The following is a 
stanza : 

" Her patches are of every cut. 

For pimples and for scars ; 
There's all the wandering planets' signs, 
And some of the fixed stars." 

On the other hand, the Puritan, or Independent, dressed in a style con- 
spicuously plain. A hat with a high conical crown, and hair shortly crop- 
ped. The ladies especially wore no ornaments whatever. Fairhold de- 
scribes their dress as meanly and ridiculously plain. 

The learning and high culture which characterize the British nobility 
and gentry of the present day were unknown at the time of the Stuarts. 
Learning then was confined to the very few, and the educated entered 
the Church 



OF HISTORY. ' iSj 

CHAPTER X. 

THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK SUCCEEDED THE STUARTS IN I714. 

Qeorge I.— South Sea Bubble— George II.— War with France— General Wolf— George III.— 
Hastings— George Gordon— Captain Cook— George IV.— O'Connell— William IV.— Reform 
Bill— Emancipation of Slaves — Wilberforce — Victoria — Coronation — Marriage — Prince Al- 
bert—War with China— Crimean War— Causes of the War— Battles — Suffering of Troops — 
Light Brigade- Attacks on Sebastopol — Population— Army— Navy— Merchant Vessels— 
Income— Expenditures— Queen's Income— Possessions— Government — Character of the Na- 
tion and People. 

The Flouse of Brunswick, the present reigning line, ascended the 
throne, in the person of George I., in 1714, at which time he was fifty-four 
years old. He was the grandson of James I., and had, up to the time 
of his ascension, lived in Germany, knew very little of England, and he 
never learned to speak or write English. His wife was Sophia of Brunswick, 
his own cousin, whom he treated with great cruelty. She was confined 
in a castle at Hanover for forty years, and during the whole of that time 
was not allowed to see her children. 

The most remarkable event of his reign was the South Sea Bubble. 
This was a scheme to swindle capitalists. A company was formed, which 
agreed to give a large part of the capital stock to the government, be- 
sides a bonus of $35,000,000. The government in return was to secure 
to the company the exclusive right to trade with certain gold-pro- 
ducing islands in the Pacific. The stock ran up to fabulous prices. The 
par value was 100, and many shares were sold for 1,000 ; presently the 
holders of stock began to wonder where the profits were to come from. 
A panic ensued, the stock was thrown upon the market ; but no pur- 
chasers came forward ; the offices of the company were closed, the btibble 
burst, and thousands were ruined. 

George H. succeeded his father, 1727, and reigned thirty-three years. 

The war with France, during this reign, extended to the French and 
British colonies in America, and Quebec fell into the hands of the British, 
at the cost of the life of General Wolf. The reign of George II. was tur- 
bulent, and characterized by foreign wars and disturbances at home. The 
king was not a man of great parts, and cared less for the prosperity of 
England than he did for his possessions in Hanover. He died on the 25th 
of October, 1760, with heart disease. 

George III., grandson of the late king, ascended the throne, 1760, and 
reigned sixty years. William Pitt was then controlling the affairs of the 
nation, which were in a most prosperous condition. The great events of 
this long reign were the rebellion of the thirteen colonies of North 



1 88 GREA T E VENT.^ 

America, the war to bring them to submission, and their firal independ- 
ence (an account of which will be found in another place), and the trial 
of Warren Hastings. 

Hastings went to India in 1750 as a clerk in the service of the East 
India Company ; twenty-three years afterward he became first Governor- 
General of India. He was successful in subduing many of the native 
governments ; but to obtain funds to carry on his wars he plundered 
Benares, the sacred Hindoo city, and the Princess of Oude. On his re- 
turn to England he was impeached by the House of Lords for malfeasance. 

The trial went on for seven years, and Hastings was acquitted ; but 
ruined in purse. The East India Company settled a pension of $20,000 
upon him, upon which he lived for the remainder of his life. 

George Gordon. — During this reign the George Gordon riots occurred. 
Certain invidious laws against Romanists had been repealed. Gordon 
went to London escorted by a turbulent mob, and presented a petition to 
restore the laws. The commons refused to listen to the petition. A riot 
known as the no-Popery riot commenced. The places of Papal worship 
were destroyed, prisons were broken open, and prisoners liberated, and 
the mob held the London streets for six days. The riot was not quelled 
till more than 400 of the insurgents had fallen beneath the bullets of the 
soldiery. Captain Cook made his voyages round the world, and the won- 
derful career of Napoleon Bonaparte had its rise and its fall in this reign. 

George III., who became insane near the end of his life, died in 1820, 
at the age of eighty-two. He was beloved by his people, was a wise 
and good king, and labored to make England great and respected. 

GEORGE IV. 
(Began to reign 1820 — died 1830.) 
George IV., on account of the insanity of his father, had been regent for 
ten years. At the death of George III. he was crowned, and reigned ten 
years. He was a dissolute, profligate man, and drew down upon himself 
the indignation of the English people for his treatment of his wife, whom 
he refused to allow the honors of a queen. During his reign, an attempt 
to remove disabilities from the Roman Catholic subjects in the kingdom 
formed the principal subject of discussion. O'Connell was allowed a seat 
in Parliament. This was regarded as a great triumph by the Papal 
party. George IV. died, leaving no heir, and his brother s" cceeded him. 

WILLIAM IV. 
(Began to reign 1830 — died 1837.) 
William IV., the brother of the late king, ascended the throne in his 
sixty-fifth year; he possessed a generous heart and sound good sense. 



OF HISTORY. 189 

The Events of his Reign. — The first railway was opened in England, 
between Liverpool and Manchester, in 1830. In the following year the 
Asiatic cholera made its appearance in Sunderland and raged for about a 
year, in which time 60,000 persons died. The great political event was the 
passage of the Reform Bill, March i, 1831. The most important feature 
of the bill was the extension of the elective franchise among the middling 
classes. But the most important event vi^as the Emancipation Act, by which 
slavery was abolished in all the British dominions. William Wilberforce 
commenced to agitate this question in 1789, and in 1833, forty-four yeais 
after, he had the satisfaction to see his life work consummated ; he died 
the same year. About 800,000 slaves were liberated, principally in the 
West Indies. The planters were allowed $1,000,000 for their slaves. 
William died June 20th, 1837, at the age of seventy-two. 

Victoria, the present ruling sovereign of Great Britain, succeeded her 
uncle on the throne, on the 21st of June, 1837, having just entered the 
nineteenth year of her age. She was highly educated and accomplished, 
having been well instructed in and imbued with high Christian principles. 
She entered upon her reign with an earnest intention to devote all her 
abilities to the good of her subjects. About a year after her ascension she 
was crowned with great ^omp and ceremony at Westminster. 

Two years after her coronation she was married to Prince Albert of 
Saxe Coburg-Gotha, a man of high principles and enlightened views. 

He was made a British citizen, and an annuity of $150,000 was settled 
upon him. 

In 1841 war with China was brought about by the British opium dealers, 
who insisted upon carrying opium into China in violation of the laws of 
the country. 

The Chinese government confiscated the opium and imprisoned the 
superintendent of English trade. War followed. The island of Hong 
Kong was captured, and an army sent from India took Canton. The 
city of Amoy was afterward captured, and Nankin was besieged. The 
Chinese were brought to terms, and in a treaty of peace ceded Hong 
Kong to the English, and opened five ports to foreign trade ; one of the 
five was Canton. 

The Crimean war has thus far been the great event of Victoria's 
reign. 

Russia having no seaboard except the Baltic, her navy is shut in during 
the winter. It is therefore no wonder if her Czars have looked with 
covetous eyes upon those parts of the Ottoman empire which border on, 
the Mediterranean. 

In 1844, while on a visit to England, Nicholas proposed (secretly) to 
make disposition of the property of the sick man, as he called Turkey, 



190 GREAT EVENTS 

and offered England Egypt as her share. England declined. The same 
proposition was made to Napoleon III., and also declined. 

About this time Russia complained of the treatment of adherents to the 
Greek Church residing in the Turkish dominions, and insisted upon the 
right to protect them. Turkey refused to comply with the requiremeri^s 
of the Czar, or to recognize his right to dictate. 

These difficulties grew so serious that, July 2d, 1853, the Czar took mili- 
tary possession of Moldavia and Wallachia, upon which Turkey declared 
war, October 5th. England and France at once decided to interfere, and 
sent a fleet to the Black Sea. France and England declared war against 
Russia, March 27th, 1854, the former demonstrations having been made in 
hope of a peaceable settlement. Their united armies were landed on the 
Crimea, where they met and put to flight a Russian force commanded by 
Prince Menschikoff" (this occurred on September 20th). 

The French and English forces combined, constituting an army 51,000 
strong, 27,000 British and 24,000 French, sailed from Varna, and landed 
at Eupatoria Bay between the i6th and i8th of September. Suffering 
severely with cholera, and scantily supplied with water and provisions, 
this vast army reached the bank of the river Bulganak on the 19th. On 
the following day (the 20th) they fought the battle of Alma. The Rus- 
sians, 50,000 strong, were commanded by Prince Menschikoff. Having 
routed the Russians, the allied forces marched to Balaklava on the 28th 
of September, and took positions preparatory to the siege of Sebastapol, 
On the morning of the 17th of October the storming of the Russian strong- 
hold commenced ; the roar of ordnance, interspersed with the terrific explo- 
sion of the Lancaster gun, began at early dawn and did not cease till 
night set in. The morning light revealed the fact that all the din and 
roar of battle of the previous day had left the rocky structure without 
damage. 

On the 25th, the Russians made an attack with 30,000 men upon a de- 
tachment posted near Balaklava, and were making headway, when a regi- 
ment of sharpshooters (Scotch Highlanders) checked the Russian advance ; 
but it was an all day's battle. Wonderful accounts of the heroic feats of 
Scotch and Irish dragoons are recorded. It was in this battle that the 
daring feat of the Light Brigade occurred. By some mistake a detachment 
of light horsemen, numbering about 650, received orders to charge some 
Russian gunners who had captured a battery. They rode down a grade 
exposed to a terrific cross fire, slew the gunners and returned, leaving 450 
of their number dead on the field. Soon after this, reinforcements arrived, 
and the Russians were put to flight, leaving the Turks and allied troops 
masters of the field. 

The day after this battle a sortie was made by the Russians from Se- 



OF HISTORY. 



191 



bastopol, which was repulsed by the English troops. But one of the 
most terrific struggles of the whole campaign occurred on the 5th of No- 
vember. The early dawn of that Sabbath morning revealed the \ resence 
of 60,000 Russians. To combat this formidable force the British had 
8,000, and the French 6,000. All day long they fought four against 
one, and night found the Russians retreating from the field. It is said 
that on the part of the allies this battle was fought without a plan, so 
sudden and unexpected was the attack ; hence the victory was due rather 
to the bravery of the men than to the skill of the officers. 

After this battle the allies sat down before Sebastopol, to continue the 
siege through the winter. When the news reached home that the French 
and English troops were bearing their national banners in triumph 
against the hosts of the Czar, while at the same time they were ill fed, 
badly clothed, without shelter, and many of them sick, a burst of indigna- 
tion arose, especially in England, where the clamor for an immediate 
change of policy was so loud and persistent, that the ministry resigned, 
and Lord Palmerston undertook the task of reconstructing the administra- 
tion. The private purse of the English people was appealed to, and not 
without success. Cargoes of comforts and supplies were quickly dispatched, 
followed by a noble band of sacrificing women, under the leadership of' 
Florence Nightingale, who devoted themselves to nursing the sick and 
wounded, and speaking words of comfort to the dying. 

On the 22d of March, 1855, Nicholas died. His death gave hopes that 
the war would close, but these hopes were not realized ; the war con- 
tinued. The past winter had been spent by the Russians in strengthening 
the most formidable fortification in the world ; while they kept the be- 
sieging army constantly on the alert by frequent sorties and advances on 
its lines. During the siege, the British constructed a railway from Bala- 
klava to their camp, and laid a cable from Bulgaria to the Crimea, by 
which means they secured certain transit of supplies, and quick corre- 
spondence with home. 

May 23d, the French and English sent an expedition by water to the 
shores of the Sea of Azof, consisting of 17,000 troops. They reached the 
head of the sea on the 3d of June, and bombarded Taganrog ; and after 
landing at various places along the shores, and doing a vast amount of 
damage to the enemy, returned to Balaklava about the middle of 
June. 

On the 9th of April Sebastopol was bombarded a second time. On the 
lith the third attack occurred, when the Mamelon was taken. On the 
17th of June a fourth and most determined attack was made. The 
Malakoff and the Redan were simultaneously assaulted. But the com- 
bined skill of the officers and bravery of the men were foiled by the 

9 



192 



GREA T E VENTS 



strength of the works and the galling fire of the Russians. In this battle 
the allied army suffered terribly. 

No more attempts were made upon Sebastopol till the 6th of September, 
when the sixth and last assault occurred. The Russians had increased 
their numbei^s and greatly strengthened their defenses. On the morning 
of the 6th of September, a fire was opened with all the strength the 
allies could command. The French rushed to the Malakoff, and in fifteen 
minutes took it. The English attacked the Redan and entered it ; but 
not being supported by reinforcements, were unable to hold their footing. 
All day and all night the battle raged, and continued till the night of the 
8th, when the Russians abandoned their works, and fled by the light of 
the burning city. 

This virtually ended the war, and on the 30th of March, 1856, a treaty 
of peace was signed at Paris. 

LIFE IN LONDON, I714. 

The descriptions of social customs have been intended to give apictuie 
of life in the country ; in the baronial castle, the manor-house of the gen- 
tleman, the farm-house, and the laborer's cot. 

• We now close these sketches with a notice of town life in the city of 
London, at the time when the House of Brunswick, the present reigning 
family, ascended the throne. 

When George I. was crowned, the number of inhabitants in Great 
Britain was 5,000,000, one-tenth of whom resided in the city of London. 
The streets of this great city were not paved, hence they were dusty in 
summer and muddy in winter. During the winter season they were 
lighted with lamps or candles until midnight ; but in summer they were 
left in darkness. Along the roadway the garbage from the houses was 
thrown, and left to rot and putrefy, sending forth odors not likely to in- 
crease the comfort or improve the health. 

Peddlers and hawkers of all sorts of things abounded ; from a boy who 
bore a basket of fruit, to a sturdy man who trundled a barrow, loaded 
with gin and ale. 

Danger in the streets at night was very great ; besides footpads and 
thieves, there were bands of desperadoes who issued from the drinking 
places, making night hideous with ribald song — and woe be to the un- 
fortunate whom business or pleasure called from home. Their amtise- 
ment was to catch a passenger and practice upon him what they called 
tip the lion, which consisted in flattening his nose and digging out one 
eye with their fingers. Or, if they preferred sweating him, they chased 
him into a corner and then pricked him with their swords ; one would 
assault him from behind, and as he tiirned sharply he met the point of 



OF HISTORY. 193 

another sword, and so on till he was bleeding on all sides : when his tor 
mentors became weary of their sport they let him go. 

These ruffians treated women with similar brutality ; it was no uncom- 
men thing when they caught a woman in the street at night, to put her in 
a barrel and roll it down a steep hill. 

The dress of the fine lady differed very little from the fashions which 
prevailed at the time of the Stuarts. The fati had become a part of her 
equipment. The manner in which the fan was held, the way in which 
it was moved, the distance it was opened, each indicated something. She 
flirted with the fan, expressed delight, anger, scorn, refused or accepted in- 
vitations and made it the vehicle of her thoughts and wishes iu all fashion- 
able assemblies. The absurd practice of ornamenting her face with black 
patches was fashionable at this period. The patches were put on so as to 
make the face indicate the political party which she favored. Those be- 
longing to the whig party wore the plaster on the right temple ; their op- 
ponents dotted the left eyebrow. 

The beau of this period made his snuff-box do duty for him in the 
same way that the lady used her fan. This toy was highly ornamented ; 
sometimes it was made of gold, inlaid with jewels. The manner of taking 
snuff indicated anger, scorn, condescension, or haughtiness, and was quite 
as expressive as the lady's maneuvers with her fan. The high wig was 
an important part of the beau's dress. A many-colored coat of velvet 
(sky-blue and scarlet being the favorite colors), with broad stiff skirts, 
heavily ornamented v^ith gold lace ; a vest of figured silk reached down 
to the thigh, a small cocked hat carried under the arm ; short breeches, 
silk stockings, and buckled shoes ; gloves with tassels, a slender cane, a 
snuff box of amber and silver, with a mounted sword, made up the dress 
of a fine gentleman. The more quiet people, the shopkeepers and the 
tradesmen, dressed plainly, dined at two o'clock, spent their evenings at 
the club, and retired at ten. The streets swarmed with beggars. The 
laboring classes lived in cellars and garrets. 

The above picture of London can hardly be realized at the present day. 
The warehouses contain the products and manufactures of all parts of 
the world. The fashionable people are well and sensibly dressed, and 
the rich are not unmindful of the poor. 

The upper and middle classes of society in this vast city excel in en- 
lightened, benevolent Christian civilization. 

CONCLUSION. 

The population of Great Britain and Ireland is about 30,000,000. As a 
naval power no nation pretends to compete with it. 

The regular army numbers about 128,000, with a large enrolled militia, 
swelling the number of men who are capable of bearing arms, to 350,000 



194 



GREAT EVENTS 



The naval force has about 34,000 sailors, 7,000 apprenti;es, and 7,000 
marines, forming an aggregate of 48,000. 

The vessels in the navy number 600, fifty of which are ironclad. 

23,000 merchant vessels sail under the British flag, 2,000 of which are 
propelled by steam. The united tonnage of this vast fleet is about 
6,fX)o,ooo, and it is manned by 200,000 men and boys. 

The annual income of the government is about $400,000,000, and its ex- 
penses about $380,000,000. To pay the interest and other annual ex- 
penses of the national debt requires about $30,000,000. 

The Queen, for the support of herself and her family, receives $2,500,000 
yearly from the government. Besides this she has an income from her 
private estates as the Duchess of Lancaster of $145,000. 

Great Britain has possessions in all parts of the world. At the entrance 
of the Mediterranean, the Rock of Gibraltar, and some islands within ; 
Aden, in Arabia ; nearly the whole of India, and about half the continent 
of North America ; valuable possessions in South America and the West 
Indies ; large portions of Africa ; islands of the Pacific, and the whole of 
Australia. It has been aptly said that upon the dominions of Great 
Britain the sun never sets. 

The government is a constitutional monarchy. The House of Lords 
and the Commons constitute the law-making power, and the crowned 
head is the executive. The rights of individuals are accurately defined 
and well protected, and the British subject enjoys and exercises the broad- 
est persona] liberty. 

In scientific discovery, geographical exploration, higher education, polite 
culture, and Chiistian civilization. Great Britain stands in the front rank 
of nations ; while, for the endearments of home, and refining influences of 
the family circle, the English people excel. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF AMERICA. 
Central Point: COLUMBUS LANDS ON ST. SALVADOR, Oct. 12, 1492 A.D. 

Early diys of Colnmbus — At Lisbon — His grand idea — His struggles— Success at last — The 
voyage out — A light ahead — Lands on St. Salvador — Reception at Barcelona — His last 
days-Ferdinand Cortez — Occupies Mexico — Seizure of Montezuma — Battle of Otumbar— 
Francisco Fizarro — The Massacre of the PeruTians — Death of the Inca — Fizarro slain. 

The autumn of the year whose dawn witnessed the fall of Granada, 
was distinguished by the discovery of America, and the planting there of 
the Spanish flag. 



OF HISTORY. 195 

Christopher Columbus (the Latin form of the Italian Colombo — in 
Spanish, Colon) was born at Genoa about 1435, the son of a wool-comber. 
A few months' study at Pavia deepened his natural love for mathematics. 
He was especially fond of geography, astronomy, and navigation. At 
fourteen he went to sea. 

After many voyages and adventures he settled, about 1470, at Lisbon, 
which was then the great centre of maritime enterprise. The fiery boy, 
ever ready for a fight, had then sobered down into a man of thirty-five, • 
gentle, temperate, with a long, fair, freckled face, sharp, light-gray eyes, and 
flowing hair prematurely white. There he married an Italian lady, Felipa. 
His chief occupation, when not at sea, was the construction of maps — a 
pursuit which brought him into contact with the leading scientific men of 
the day. 

There, as he pored over his maps, a grand idea began to take definite 
shape within his brain. He believed that it was possible to reach Asia by 
sailing westward across the Atlantic. His thoughts upon the globular 
shape of the earth, the opinions expressed by old writers on geography, 
and, stronger still, the facts that pieces of carved wood, huge reeds, and 
pine-trees — even two drowned men of unknown race — drifted towards 
Europe by westerly winds, had been picked up in the Atlantic, or washed 
ashore at the Azores, deepened this conviction ; and his soul kindled 
within him, as he felt that he was the man chosen by heaven to carry the 
light of the Cross into a new world beyond the western waves. 

His plans were first submitted to John II. of Portugal, who was mean 
enough, while haggling about terms, to send a vessel out on the proposed 
route. A few days' sailing, however, cowed the would-be robbers, who 
put back without having seen anything but a waste of stormy waters. 
His offers to the government of his native Genoa were rejected too. In 
1485, we find him in the south of Spain. The time was not in his favor, 
for the land was ringing with the din of the Moorish war. Obtaining an 
audience through Cardinal Mendoza, he pleaded eloquently for aid. But 
he was put off, his plans being referred to pedantic monks, who either 
could or would make no decision. In truth, for many of these years his 
bitter portion was that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. 

At last the banner of Spain floated on the Alhambra. The war was 
over. Once more Columbus laid his plans before the court. Filled with 
the grandeur of bis scheme, he demanded that he should be admiral and 
viceroy of all the lands he discovered, and that he should receive one-tenth 
of all the gains. As an offset to these demands, he offered to bear an eighth 
of the expense. Unfortunately, the Castilian treasury was empty ; and Fer- 
dinand, grudging the two ships and three thousand crowns needful for the 
voyage, had already rejected the proposals of Columbus, when Isabella — 



196 



GREAT EVENTS 



to her lasting honor — declared that she would pawn her jewels for the 
cost of the expedition. Columbus, who had left Santa Fe, was recalled, 
and an arrangement was completed. 

On a Friday morning, three ships — two of them being caravels, or light 
undecked boats, called the Pinta and the Nina, the third a 
Aug. 3, larger vessel, the Sania Maria, which bore the flag of Colum- 
1492 bus — left the harbor of Palos in Andalusia. One hundred and 
A.D. twenty men were on board. As the last farewells were said, 
and the heavy tears fell fast, hope died out in every breast but 
one. True as the needle to the pole, the brave heart of the admiral 
pointed to its grand purpose. Touching at the Canaries, they sailed west- 
ward for forty days, when it was noticed that the needle was not pointing 
to the north star. The pilots were in alarm, until Columbus explained 
away their fear. Seaweed drifting past, and birds wheeling round seemed 
to betoken that land was near. But as day after day rose and set on the 
heaving circle of water, unbroken by one speck of shore, the murmurs of 
the crews grew deep. 

Clouds on the horizon deceived them more than once. On the evening 
of the loth of October, the clamor broke wildly out. Go home they 
wi)uld. But still the iron will of Columbus beat down these feebler souls, 
and the prows still pointed to the west. Sternly he told them that, happen 
what might, he was resolved to go on, and, with God's blessing, to suc- 
ceed. Next day their hopes revived, for they saw green rock-fish playing 
in the sea, river weeds, and a branch with fresh berries floating by, and 
they picked up a reed, a board, and a carved stick. 

That evening, at ten o'clock, Columbus, standing on the raised poop of 

his ship, thought he saw a light on the dark horizon. He 

Oct. 12j called two of his associates. One saw it — the other caught some 

1492 gleams as it rose and fell in the dim night. Four hours later, 

A.D. at two o'clock, a shot from the Pinta announced that land 

was ahead. And when that famous Friday morning dawned, 

there it lay, six miles off, the dream of many struggling years realized at 

last — a low, green shore fringed with many trees. 

Columbus, dressed in rich scarlet, landed with the royal banner of Spain 
in his hand. Kissing the welcome soil with tears of joy, he returned 
thanks to God ; and then with drawn sword took possession of the island, 
which he named San Salvador. It was one of the Bahama group. The 
siinple natives, who had at first fled in fear to the woods, soon returning, 
timidly made friends with the Spaniards, touching their beards, and won- 
dering at their white faces. 

Cruising among these islands, which have ever since been called the 
West Indies, from the mistaken idea of Columbus that they formed a part 



OF HISTORY. 



197 



of Asia, the Spaniards discovered Cuba and Hispaniola. Columbus 

reached Palos just seven months and twelve days from the 

sailing of the expedition. His reception at Barcelona was 3Iarcll 15. 

a brilliant triumph. The king and queen, rising to receive 1493 

him, bestowed on him the rare honor of a seat in their A.D. 

presence. He told his story ; showed the birds, the plants, 

the gold ore, and the natives he had brought from the New World ; and 

when he ceased to speak, the sovereigns fell on their knees, while a hymn 

of thanksgiving rose from the assembled choir. 

Columbus made three more voyages of discovery. In 1500, upon a false 
charge of oppressing the colonists of Hispaniola, he was superseded by 
Bobadilla, who sent him in fetters to Spain. These irons he kept ever 
after, hanging up in his private room, to remind him of the ingratitude of 
princes : and he ordered them to be buried in his grave. Returning from 
his last voyage, in 1504, this greatest of the world's sailors laid down hii 
weary head to die at Valladolid, May 20th, 1506. 

In 1518 the Spanish governor of Cuba sent an officer, Ferdinand Cortez, 
with ten ships and six hundred men, to conquer the newly discovered 
Mexico. Having founded the colony of Vera Cruz as a basis of opera- 
tions, Cortez then brolce all his ships to pieces. This he did to insure suc- 
cess, for he thus shut himself and his soldiers up in the invaded land. 

Montezuma was the emperor of the Mexicans. Gradually advancing 
through his territories, the Spanish force at last reached the capital. 
Everywhere they were regarded as deities — children of the sun. Scrolls 
of cotton cloth were carried far and wide through the terror-stricken land, 
on which were pictured pale-faced, bearded warriors, trampling horses, 
ships with spreading wings, and cannons breathing out lightning, and 
dashing to the earth tall trees far away. The emperor admitted Cortez to 
his capital, but at the same time sent a secret expedition to attack Vera 
Cruz. The hopes of the Mexicans revived when they saw the head of a 
Spaniard carried through the land ; for then they knew that their foes 
were mortal. At this crisis Cortez resolved on a bold stroke. Seizing 
Montezuma, he carried him to the Spanish quarters, and forced him to ac- 
knowledge himself a vassal of Spain. 

Having held Mexico for six months, Cortez left it to defeat Narvaez, 
whom the Cuban government, jealous of his success, had sent against him 
with neaily a thousand men. 

During his absence all was uproar in the capital. Two thousand Mexi- 
can nobles had been massacred for the sake of their golden ornaments , 
and the Spanish quarters were surrounded by a furious crowd. The return 
of Cortez, with a force increased by the troops of the defeated Narvaez, 

* The aborigines of America are still called Indians from the same error. 



198 



GREA T E VENTS 



was oil cast on flame. Montezuma, striving to mediate, was killed by a 
stone flung by one of his angry subjects. The Spaniards were for a time 
driven from the city ; but in the valley of Otumba (1520) the Mexicans 
were routed, and their golden standard was taken. Soon after- 
1521 ward the new emperor was made prisoner, stretched on burn- 
A.D. ing coals, and gibbeted. The siege of Mexico, lasting seventy- 
five days, was the final blow. 

The cruelty of Cortez is undoubted ; but it is possible to find in the 
story of our own empire, cases which can rival in atrocity the bloodiest 
deeds of the Spanish adventurer. He, too, like Columbus, was looked 
coldly on at home. He died in 1547 at Seville, aged sixty-two. 

The conqueror of Peru was Francisco Pizarro, a man who could neither 
read nor write, and whose early days were spent in herding swine. Run- 
ning away from home in early life, he became a soldier, and saw much 
service in the New World. Between 1524 and 1528, while exploring the 
coast of Peru, he formed the design of conquering that golden land 
being tempted by the abundance of the precious metals, which glittered 
everywhere, forming not merely the ornaments of the people, but the 
commonest utensils of everyday life. 

He sailed from Panama with one hundred and eighty-six men, in Feb- 
ruary, 1 53 1. A civil war then raging in Peru between two brothers, who 
were rivals for the throne, made his task an easier one than it might other- 
wise have been. The strife seems to have been to some extent decided 
when the Spaniards landed, for Atahualpa was then Inca of Peru — so they 
called their kings. 

Pizarro found the Inca holding a splendid court near the city of Caxa- 
marca ; and the eyes of the Spanish pirates gleamed when they saw the 
glitter of gold and jewels in the royal camp. The visit of the Spanish 
leader was returned by the Inca, who came in a golden chair, encompassed 
by ten thousand guards. A friar, crucifix in hand, strove to convert this 
worshipper of the sun, telling him at the same time that the pope had 
given Peru to the King of Spain. The argument was all lost on the Inca, 
who could not see how the pope was able to give away what was not his, 
and who, besides, scorned the idea of giving up the worship of so mag- 
nificent a god as the sun. The furious priest turned with a cry for ven- 
geance to the Spaniards. They were ready, for it was all a tragedy well 
rehearsed beforehand. The match was laid to the levelled cannon, and 
a storm of shot from great guns and small burst upon the poor 

1533 huddled crowd of Peruvians, amid whose slaughter and dismay 
A.D. Pizarro carried off the Inca. As the price of freedom, Atahu- 
alpa offered to fill his cell with gold. The offer was accepted, 
and the treasure divided among the Spaniards ; but the unhappy Inca 



OF HISTORY. 199 

was strangled after all. The capture of Cuzco completed the wonderfully 
easy conquest of Peru. 

Pizarro founded Lima in 1535 ; and, six years later, was slain by con- 
spirators, who burst into his palace during the mid-day siesta. 

KINGS OF ASAGON DURING THE FODRTiaiNTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

A.D. 

James II 

Alfonso IV 1327 

Peter IV 1336 

John I 1387 

Martin 1 1396 

Interregnum 1410 

Ferdinand the Just 1412 

Alfonso V 1416 

John II., King of Navarre 1458 

Ferdinand V., the Catholic I47Q 



CHAPTER XII. 

SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA, 162O. 

EmlarMng in England — Landing in America — Progress— Canse of war with the Indians. 

America, soon after its discovery, drew the attention of all the nations 
of western Europe toward it. Adventurers from England and France, as 
well as from Spain and Portugal, flocked to the New World ; most of 
whom were attracted by the hope of repairing their ruined fortunes. 
France took possession of the northern portions, afterwards called Canada, 
and made settlements ; England attempted colonies farther south, in Vir- 
ginia. 

In August, 1620, one hundred and two persons, men, women, and chil- 
dren, set sail, in a small vessel, from Plymouth, England, for the New 
World. These persons were not in search of gold. They sought an asy- 
lum where they might exercise the rights of conscience without fear of 
molestation. 

The one hundred and two consisted of forty-one male adults and sixty- 
one women and children. Before landing they entered into a written 
compact to obey all laws that should afterwards be made by them. This 
little band may be regarded as the foundation of the United States ; a 
nation destined to play a most wonderful part in the world's history ; 
establishing political and religious liberty ; advancing civilization, and 



zoo GREAT EVENTS . 

affording an asylum for the surplus population of the overcrowdtd coun- 
tries of the Old World. 

Under the most discouraging circumstances, harassed by famine, 
pinched with the frosts of a New England winter, and surrounded by 
savages, this little band struggled on. Sickness and exposure greatly 
reduced their numbers. Yet before their steady perseverance the forest 
disappeared ; towns and villages sprang up, and the virgin soil yielded to 
cultivation an abundant harvest. 

Liberty of conscience and political freedom attracted settlers. Colony 
succeeded colony until thirteen distinct establishments had been planted, 
under the name of Colonies of Great Britain in North America. 

Although the English planted a colony at Jamestown, in Virginia, in 
1607, thirteen years before ; the settlement of the Plymouth colony was 
really the foundation of the present nation, known as the United States 
of North America. 

As has already been stated, colony after colony was founded along the 
Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Georgia ; the early settlers .suffer- 
ing great privations and enduring the hardships incident to the settlement 
of a wilderness. But so determined were these people to make a home 
for themselves and their posterity, that their industry and perseverance 
overcame all obstacles, and in little more than a century the forests were 
supplanted by cultivated fields. Hamlets, towns, and cities sprang up, 
and more than three millions of people were found within the borders of 
the thirteen colonies. 

For many years the aboriginal inhabitants were friendly to the whites. 
The natives entered into a compact and treaty of peace and amity with 
the white settlers. 

Massasoit was then chief of the Wampanoags. While he lived no hos- 
tilities occurred. After his death, his son Philip became chief. He did 
not regard the compact made by his father binding upon him ; becoming 
alarmed at the encroachments of the whites, he commenced stirring up 
the New England tribes to make a united attack upon their common 
enemy. 

In 1675 a friendly Indian was murdered : three natives were arrested by 
the whites, tried, condemned, and executed for the murder. This precipi- 
tated hostilities, and the first Indian war commenced in 1675, called 
Philip's War, Philip being the active chief. 

Edward Everett has described the cause of the outbreak in the follow- 
ing address, delivered at Bloody Brook, South Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 
commemoration of the battle which occurred there during Philip's War. 



OF HISTORY. 301 



(extract from an address by EDWARD EVERETT.) 
The Indian Outbreak of Hostilities. 

" Think of iut country for which the Indians fought ! Who can blame 
them ? As Phiup looked down from his seat on Mount Hope, that glori- 
ous eminence ; as he looked down and beheld the lovely scene which 
spread beneath at a summer sunset — the distant hill-tops blazing with gold, 
the slanting beams streaming along the waters, the broad plains, the 
island groups, the majestic forest — could he be blamed if his heart burned 
within him as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath 
his control, into the hands of the stranger? 

" Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, 
in company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already 
made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he 
was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, ' White 
man, there is eternal war between me and thee ! I quit not the land 'of 
my fathers but with my life ! In those woods, where I bent my youthful 
bow, I will still hunt the deer ; over yonder waters I will still glide un- 
restrained in my bark canoe ; by those dashing waterfalls I will still lay 
up my winter's store of food ; on these fertile meadows I will still plant 
my corn. 

" ' Stranger, the land is mine ! I understand not these paper rights. I 
gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these bi-oad regions were pur- 
chased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs ; 
they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great 
Spirit sent me into the world to live upon ? They knew not what they 
did. The stranger came — a timid suppliant, few and feeble — and asked to 
lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's 
fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and chil- 
dren ; and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads 
out his parchment over the whole, and says, " It is mine ! " 

" ' Stranger, there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not 
made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup ; the 
Avhite man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land 
of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell 
among the graves of the Pequods ? Shall I go to the west ? — the fierce 
Mohawk, the man-eater, is my foe. Shall I fly to the east ? — the great 
water is before me. No, stranger ! here I have lived, and here will I die ; 
and if here thou abidest. there is eternal war between me and thee. Thou 



202 GREA T E VENTS 

hast taught me thy arts of destruction ; for that alone I thank thee. And 
now take heed to thy steps ! The red man is thy foe ! 

" ' When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle by thee ; when 
thou liest down at night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall 
not discover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect 
thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood ; thou shalt 
sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes ; thou shalt go forth 
with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife ; thou shalt 
build, and I will burn, till the white man or the Indian shall cease from 
the land. Go thy way, for this time, in safety ; but remember, stranger, 
there is eternal war between me and thee ! ' " 

Philip and his followers kept the colonists in constant alarm, appearing 
at the most unexpected times and places, massacring the people and 
burning dwellings and hamlets. For a long time his hiding-place was 
kept secret ; at length bne of his own men guided a band of whites and 
friendly Indians to his retreat. Philip and a few of his followers were 
surrounded, and, in a desperate attempt to escape, the chief was shot by an 
Indian, a deserter from his own camp. 

French and Indian War, and the causes which led to the Bevolntion. 

After the death of Philip, the colonists dwelt in comparative peace and 
safety from Indian attacks, until the declaration of war between England 
and France occurred, in 1752, on account of the encroachments of the 
French upon the territory claimed by the English in North America. The 
French induced the Indians to join them, and the colonists on the frontier 
were again exposed to the horrors of savage warfare. After a war of 
eight years the French surrendered, and Canada became a part of the 
British possessions in North America. 

This was kpown as the French and Indian war. When the war closed, 
England found her national debt greatly increased, and her statesmen 
conceived the project of levying a tax upon the colonists, to ease the bur 
den of the home government. 

The colonists contended that if they were taxed, they should be allowed 
to send members to Parliament, resisting taxation without representation. 
The British Parliament, looking upon the colonists as helpless dependents, 
at once refused to admit members from the colonies, and asserted an un- 
conditional right to tax any subject of the British crown. Many members 
of Parliament took the side of the colonists, and the question gave rise to 
much spirited and eloquent debate. 



OF HISTORY. 



203 



The contest continued. The colonists petitioned, and the home gov- 
ernment treated their petitions with contempt. In 1765, a congress of 
delegates from the several colonies met in New York, and, after deliber- 
ating, humbly petitioned Parliament, hoping to get redress, but failed. In 
1774, the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, and adopted a bill of 
rights. Parliament persisted in legislating without regard to the rights of 
the colonies, and passed the following acts of oppression and irritation 
which resulted in war, called the American Revolution. 

Finding direct taxation so unpopular, and opposed with so much bold 
decision by the colonists, the British Parliament decided to impose instead, 
a system of imposts and stamp duties. In 1765, on the 22d day of March, 
a stamp act was passed. The Commons gave a vote for the act, 250 ayes to 
50 nays, while the House of Lords was unanimous. This law made all 
deeds, mortgages, articles of agreement, and receipts, of no legal value un- 
less written upon stamped paper. 

To try cases for violating the stamp act, the courts proceeded without 
jury. This was regarded as an infringement upon personal rights. 

To enforce this and other acts, and to awe the people into submission, 
troops were sent out from England and quartered on the colonists. 

Import duties were laid on tea, glass, paper, and painters' colors. 

An act had also been passed, making it necessary to ship all goods to and 
from America in British ships. 

A vessel laden with tea, laying at anchor in Boston harbor, was boarded 
by men disguised as Indians, who broke open the chests and threw the 
tea overboard. To punish the Bostonians for this act Parliament closed 
the port. 

An act was passed in 1775, forbidding Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
Hampshire, and Rhode Island, to trade with any nation except the mother 
country, and prohibiting them from fishing on the Newfoundland banks. 

These acts so annoyed and exasperated the colonists, that they became 
insubordinate and rebellious. The king and Parliament became indig- 
nant and determined to force submission ; more troops were sent over and 
quartered on the people ; matters grew worse and worse until the colo- 
nists began to collect stores and munitions, preparatory to the struggle which 
seemed imminent. The British commander of the troops stationed at Bos- 
ton, learning that stores were collecting at Lexington, sent a detachment 
to seize and destroy them, April 19, 1775. 

The stores were destroyed by the British troops ; but the Minute men 
who had assembled to protect the stores, hung on the rear of the retreat- 
ing force, annoying and harassing them so severely that they found great 
difficulty in making good their retreat. 



204 GREAT EVENTS 

These acts, and especially the hostilities, so aroused the rugged yeo- 
manry of Connecticut and the territory of Vermont, that they at once 
flew to arms, without order or system. The old musket that had lain in 
its hooks since the French and Indian war ; the shot-gun used to kill the 
small game of the fields and neighboring forests, were furbished up, and 
the pewter plates and spoons of the kitchen were melted to make bullets; 
thus equipped, the sturdy settlers sought the appointed rendezvous. 

The characteristics of the people and the spirit of the times are shown 
in the character of Ethan Allen, of Vermont, who conceived the design 
of capturing Fort Ticonderoga, situated on the west side of Lake Cham- 
plain near its head. Without orders or authority he at once set about 
enrolling troops to accomplish the object. He collected two hundred and 
thirty men at Castleton, and, on receiving the addition of forty more from 
Connecticut, he set out. Proceeding to the eastern shore of the lake, he 
arrived in the night opposite the fort. 

Securing the services of a lad Who acted as guide, he approached the 
entrance of the fort so quietly as to secure the two sentinels without giv- 
ing alarrn. Allen marched into the fort at the head of his men, and being 
led by one of the sentinels to the quarters of the commandant, he aroused 
him from a deep sleep. Appearing at the door in his night-dress, he 
demanded what was the matter. Allen drew his sword and ordered him 
to surrender the fort. De La Place in consternation asked, " By whose 
authority do you act?" To which Allen replied, "In the name of the 
Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." 

The garrison was surrendered, and one hundred and twenty cannon, 
valuable stores, and forty-nine prisoners were secured. The garrison at 
Crown Point was also captured without the loss of a man on either side. 

Colonel Allen, after this important service, went to Canada, hoping to 
induce the inhabitants to unite with the colonists, but was unsuccessful. 
Joining an expedition against Montreal, he was taken prisoner and sent to 
England. While there, the proposition was made to him that he should 
return to America and join the royal cause. As a reward for so doing, 
he was promised a high commission in the British army, a large sum of 
money, and a tract of land in Vermont. He, however, was incorruptible ; 
was sent back to America in chains, and confined in one of the prison 
ships in the harbor of New York, where he remained for more than a 
year. 

News of the conflict at Lexington spread far and wide. Couriers rode 
from town to town ; in a marvelously short time the settlements in all 
parts of the Colonies were alive with excitement and preparation. 

General Stark neither waited for orders nor commission. It is said that 
in ten minutes after the intelligence reached him, he was on the road to 



OF HISTORY. 205 

Boston. Israel Putnam was plowing in the field when the herald rode 
by. He unyoked his oxen, left his plow in the furrow, mounted his horse, 
and set out for Boston without changing his clothes. 

While these things were going on in the North, other Colonies were 
equally active. In the South, Patrick Henry was rousing the patriotism 
of the fieiy Virginians by his glowing eloquence. His celebrated watch- 
words, " Give me liberty, or give me death," are in the mouth of the 
school-boy at the present day. 

In Maryland the populace was so exasperated that the royal governor, 
in order to quell the excitement, threw open the public magazines, and 
allowed the arms and ammunition to be taken. 

The people of South Carolina broke open the arsenal at Charleston and 
armed themselves. The Georgians followed their example, and helped 
.themselves to the king's arms and ammunition. 

The western hills of North Carolina had been settled by Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians, who were said to unite the wit and impulsiveness of the 
Irishman with the stubborn, resolute bravery of the Scottish Highlander. 
When a knowledge of the doings in the North reached these men of the 
hills, a convention was in session. The indignation of the delegates was 
such that they, by a unanimous vote, declared themselves no longer sub- 
ject to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. This is said to have 
been the first formal declaration of independence proclaimed in the Colo- 
nies. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1 775-6. 

Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill— Assembling of a Congress of the Colonies— Washington 
elected commander-in-chief of the Colonial forces— Declaration of Independence. 

On the 17th day of June, about two months after the battle of Lexing- 
ton, the battle of Bunker Plill occurred. 

The battle of Lexington may be regarded as the inauguration of the 
war, known as the American Revolution, which resulted in the independ- 
ence of the thirteen British Colonies in North America. All hope of re- 
:onciliation vanished with the outbreak of these hostilities. And the Con- 
tinental Congress, then assembled, immediately took measures to raise an 
army, and appointed George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, com- 
mander-in-chief. 

Congress believing the only mode to treat their difficulties now, was tc 



206 GREAT EVENTS 

declare the colonies independent of the mother, country, published, on the 

4th of July, 1776, the following 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

In Congress, July 4, 1776. 
A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in 
Congress assembled. 
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle 
them, a decent i-espect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: — That all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, de 
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that, when- 
ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the 
right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new gov- 
ernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its pow- 
ers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety 
and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long es- 
tablished should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and ac- 
cordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to 
suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the 
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses 
and iisurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to 
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to 
throw off" such government, and to provide new guards for their future 
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and 
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former sys- 
tems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is 
a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object 
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove 
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary 
for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing 
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be 
obtained ; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to 
them. 



OF HISTORY. 



207 



He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large dis 
tricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of repre- 
sentation in the Legislature — a right inestimable to them, and formidable 
to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomforta- 
ble, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole 
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with 
manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others 
to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, 
have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the State remaining, 
in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without 
and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that 
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to 
pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the condi- 
tions of new appropriations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent 
to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their 
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of 
officers, to harass our people and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the 
consent of our Legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to 
the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to 
our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to 
their acts of pretended legislation, — 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders 
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury : 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses : 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring prov- 
ince, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its 
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument foi 
'ntroducing the same absolute rule into these colonies : 



2o8 GREAT EVENTS 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and 
altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments : 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested 
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protec- 
tion, and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and 
destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to 
complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with 
circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most bar- 
barous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, 
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their 
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored 
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, 
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, 
sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in 
the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions have been answered only 
Dy repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every 
act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We 
have warned them, from time to time, of attempts, by their Legislature, to 
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them 
of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have 
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured 
them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, 
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. 
They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our sepa- 
ration, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, 
in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in 
General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority 
of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That 
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be. Free and Independ- 
ent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of 
Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as free and 



OF HISTORY. 



209 



independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, con- 
tract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things 
which independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this 
declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
honor. 

The foregoing Declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and 
signed by the following members : — 



New Hampshire. 
Josiah Bartlett, 
William Whipple, 
Matthew Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay. 

Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerry. 

Rhode Island, etc. 
Stephen Hopkins, 
William Ellery. 

Connecticut. 
Roger Sherman, 
Samuel Huntington, 
William Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

New York. 
William Floyd, 
Philip Livingston, 
Francis Lewis, 
i.ewis Morris. 



JOHN HANCOCK. 

New Jersey. 
Richard Stockton, 
John Witherspoon, 
Francis Hopkinson, 
John Hart, 
Abraham Clark. 

Pennsylvania. ' 
Robert Morris, 
Benjamin Rush, 
Benjamin Franklin, 
John Morton, 
George Clymer, 
James Smith, 
George Taylor, 
James Wilson, 
George Ross. 

Delaware. 
Caesar Rodney, 
George Read, 
Thomas M'Kean. 

Maryland. 
Samuel Chase, 
William Paca, 
Thomas Stone, 



Charles Carroll, of Car- 

roUton. 

Virginia. 

George Wythe, 
Richard Henry Lee, 
Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, 
Thomas Nelson, Jr., 
Francis Lightfoot Lee 
Carter Braxton. 

North Carolina 
William Hooper, 
Joseph Hewes, 
John Penn. 

South Carolina. 
Edward Rutledge, 
Thomas Heyward, Jr^ 
Thomas Lynch, Jr., 
Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia. 
Button Gwinnett, 
Lyman Hall, 
George Walton. 



2 lo GREA T E VENTS 

CHAPTER XIV. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1 775-6 {^Continued'). 

Hew forces arrived at Boston, from England — Washington took command of the American 
army — Invasion of Canada — Battle of Quebec — Arnold retreated — Army under Washington 
assaulted Boston — British withdrew— Washington moved to New York — Battle of Long 
Island— Howe entered New York— Battle of White Plains— Capture of Fort Washington 
—March across New Jersey — Lee taken prisoner — Battle of Trenton. 

The news of the battle of Lexington aroused the war spirit of the colon- 
ies, and they at once began to collect around Boston ; so that in about te,n 
days, the city was besieged by twenty thousand men. On the 25th of 
May, new troops arrived from England, increasing the force of General 
Gage to twelve thousand. Many of the Americans that flocked to Boston, 
on the news of the battle of Lexington, were without arms, and had been 
attracted by a desire to see and hear what was going on. 

On the 3d of July, 1775, when Washington took command of the 
army at Cambridge, he found it to consist of fourteen thousand undisci- 
plined men, some without arms, and the whole without the necessary 
equipage to conduct a siege. 

The Americans invaded Canada in two divisions ; one proceeded by the 
way of Lake Champlain, and the other by the way of Kennebec 
River. 

Schuyler set out with the western division, but was relieved, and Mont- 
gomery took command. He captured St. John's and Montreal early in 
November, and proceeded to Quebec. He arrived at Quebec during the 
same month, and united his forces with those who had set out undei 
Arnold, by the Kennebec route. Their united forces did not exceed a 
thousand men fit for the field. 

They at once besieged the city, and on the last day of December, 
assaulted the defenses of the British, in the midst of a severe snow-storm, 
and were repulsed, with a loss of about half their men, and their com- 
mander, Montgomery. Arnold was wounded and carried from the front, 
and Morgan took command, pushed on the fight, but, being attacked in 
both front and rear, surrendered, fighting till he was compelled to 
desist. 

Arnold then, with a miserable remnant of the force, retired to a short 
distance from Quebec, where he remained until June, when he was glad 
to escape. 

During the winter, the American army, under Washington, remained 
near Boston. Early in March, 1776, they assaulted the city. The British 
commander made a sortie, and attempted to drive the Americans from 



OF HISTORY. 211 

Dorchester Heights, but not succeeding they evacuateci the city. They 
embarked and sailed for Halifax ; and Washington entered Boston, on 
the 17th of March, 1776. 

The Bostonians welcomed him. The city had been for a year in the 
hands of the enemy. The inhabitants had been subjected to the most 
humiliating indignities by the ignorant soldiery and their arrogant 
officers. 

Washington, soon after the British left Boston, moved his army to New 
York, supposing that city would be the next point of attack. Early in 
July, General Howe took possession of Staten Island. Admiral Howe 
soon after arrived with fresh troops from England ; and in the begin- 
ning of August, Generals Clinton and Cornwallis united their forces with 
Howe's, making an army of over thirty thousand. Washington's army at 
the same time did not reach half that number. 

In the latter part of August, the British landed on the west end of 
Long Island. Washington had stationed five thousand men at Brooklyn, 
under the command of Generals Putnam and Sullivan ; CHnton attacked 
them ; they retreated behind their defenses with a loss of sixteen hundred 
in killed, wounded, and prisoners ; the British lost less than four hundred. 
Two days after, Washington crossed the river, under the cover of night, 
and removed his stores to New York. 

About the middle of the following September, Washington moved to 
Harlem. Three days afterwards, Howe entered New York, and immedi- 
ately attacked the Americans at Harlem, and was defeated. He then 
moved up Long Island Sound, and Washington moved to White Plains. 
Howe attacked him here on the 28th of October and defeated him. Wash- 
ington having withdrawn his army to Northcastle, Howe returned to 
New York, attacked Fort Washington, and after a brave resistance it was 
captured, with two thousand eight hundred men. 

Washington passed over the Hudson, marched through New Jersey with 
the British in pursuit, and crossed the Delaware, his army consisting of 
less than three thousand. Cornwallis, the British commander, pursued 
him to the Delaware, and then quartered his troops in Trenton, Princeton, 
and New Brunswick. Lee, who had been left on the Hudson River, was 
ordered to join Washington. He put his troops in motion, but was taken 
prisoner while on his march through New Jersey. 

Gloom overspread the cause, and many who had at first favored the 
cause of independence, forsook the patriots and renewed their allegiance 
with England. 

In the midst of this depression, Washington conceived the plan of at- 
tacking Trenton, where fifteen hundred Hessians were stationed. On 
Christmas night, while the Germans were celebrating the annual festival 

13 



2 1 2 GREA T E ■''ENTS 

WashingtoD. crossed the Delaware with about two thousand five hundred 
men ; surprised the Hessians in the midst of their revelries, killed about 
forty, and took a thousand prisoners. Colonel Rhol, their commander, 
was mortally wounded. 

This brilliant affair revived the drooping spirits of the patriots, put 
new life and courage in the shattered army, and closed the year 1776. 

Note. — In the beginning of the difficulties, England contracted with the 
Elector of Hesse, a small German state, to furnish seventeen thousand 
troops, for a certain sum, and to pay an additional sum for every one that 
did not return. The sum of $2,355,000 was paid for men that did not 
return, at $150 per man ; showing that fifteen thousand seven hundred 
did not return. 



CHAPTER XV. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION — 1 777 — {Continued). 

Washington's second battfe at Trenton— Battle of Princeton— Commissioners sent to France- 
Arrival of Lafayette— Bnrgoyne invaded the Colonies from Canada— Burgoyne' a surrender 
—Battle of the Brandywine— Congress left Philadelphia— English entered Philadelphia- 
Battle of Germantown— Condition of the army — Effect of Burgoyne's surrender on Parlia- 
ment — French aid — Effect of French alliance — Clinton's arrival — Battle of Monmouth — 
Battle of Wyoming— Campaign to the southern States. 

Washington recrossed the Delaware immediately after the capture of 
the Hessians. Having secured his prisoners, he returned to Trenton, and 
on the 2nd of January, Cornwallis attacked him about sunset. The 
Americans were posted on the east bank of the Assunpink, a small 
stream which flows into the Delaware at this place. They repulsed the 
British, and prevented them from crossing the river. Cornwallis with- 
drew, and said he would " bag the fox in the morning." Washington, 
about midnight, withdrew, leaving his camp-fires burning, and by a cir- 
cuitous route marched to Princeton, where he encountered and defeated 
a part of the army of Cornwallis. The British lost in the encounter 
about four hundred ; the American loss did not exceed thirty, but among 
that number was General Mercer. The Americans moved to Morristown, 
and went into winter quarters. In March, the Americans sent Dr. Frank- 
lin, Silas Dean, and Arthur Lee to France to secure aid. They sue 
ceeded in obtaining twenty thousand muskets, and one thousand barrels of 
oowder. 

The American army moved from Morristown to Middlebrook. 

During this year, a number of distinguished Europeans arrived in the 



OF HISTORY. 213 

country and took part in the struggle ; the most eminent of whom was the 
young Marquis de Lafayette, who, though not twenty years of age, pur- 
chased a ship, loaded her with arms and military stores, sailed for the 
West Indies ; but when the ship was at sea, used the right of the owner 
of the vessel, and ordered the captain to sail to the United States. Arriv- 
ing, he presented the cargo to Congress, and offered himself as a volunteer 
to serve in the army. He was made at once an aid-de-camp, and soon re- 
ceived the appointment of major-general. 

He remained, fighting the battles, and relieving the wants of the Ameri- 
cans, to the end of the war. 

In June of this year, the British Government sent ten thousand men 
under the command of General Burgoyne, from Canada into the United 
States, by the way of Lake Champlain. 

General Schuyler obstructed his march as much as possible, and made 
his progress so slow that he did not reach Fort Edward, on the Hudson, 
till the last of July. The American army retreated to the mouth of the 
Mohawk. Schuyler was relieved by Gates. 

Burgoyne moved to Saratoga, and the Americans to Stillwater. Several 
indecisive battles were fought ; and Burgoyne, finding his supplies cut off, 
attempted to retreat to Fort Edward ; he now discovered that he was 
hemmed in on all sides, and offered to surrender. On the 17th day of Oc- 
tober he capitulated, surrendering five thousand seven hundred and 
ninety-one troops. 

In July of this year, while Burgoyne was advancing from the North, the 
British fleet sailed from New York for the Chesapeake, and landed 
eighteen thousand men at Elkton. This army was put in motion with the 
design of taking Philadelphia. Washington, anticipating the movement, had 
moved his army to Chad's Ford, on the Brandywine. There the British 
attacked and defeated him. The Americans retreated, having suffered a 
loss of twelve hundred men. Lafayette took part in the battle and was 
wounded, but not severely. 

As Congress was sitting in Philadelphia, great efforts were made to 
stop the march of the British, but they were so superior in numbers that 
the Americans did little else than impede their progress. About the mid- 
dle of September, Congress left Philadelphia for Lancaster, and on the 
26th of the same month the English entered the city. 

Washington encountered the British army at Germantown, early in Oc- 
tober, and after a bloody contest, in which he lost one thousand men, he 
withdrew and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, on iith of Decem- 
ber, 1777. The condition of the army was now most discouraging : the 
winter was severe , the men without blankets, and many with scarcely 
clothes enough to cover their nakedness ; bare-footed and destitute of a 



214 GREAT EVENTS 

supply of food ; having been defeated at Brandywine and Germaatown; 
and Congress had been driven from Philadelphia, The officers began to 
resign, and the men in large numbers to desert. It was no wonder that, at 
the close of this year, the friends of the cause began to despair. 

When the news of Burgoyne's surrender reached England, the king and 
Parliament were astounded. They had laid their plans, and made calcula- 
tion for no defeats. Besides this disaster, it was rumored that France was 
on the point of rendering the Americans aid, and that they were negotiat- 
ing a loan with Holland. The friends of America in Parliament com- 
menced anew their opposition to the nation's policy. They had denounced 
the use of Hessians in the war, and had been outraged at the employment 
of savages to murder and scalp their relations in America. The merchants 
complained that their trade with America had been broken up by the war, 
and the debts of the Americans made void. American cruisers scouring 
the ocean had captured six hundred British merchant vessels. 

More than twenty thousand men had already perished, and a hundred 
millions of dollars had been wasted to carry on the war. These things 
had their effect on Parliament. . 

In order to reconcile his subjects, the king allowed two bills to be 
introduced and passed by Parliament. One exempted the Americans from 
taxation, yielding the point of contest, and the other appointed commis- 
sioners to negotiate with them. 

When the French Government became acquainted with the passage of 
these bills, it immediately acknowledged the independence of the United 
States, entered into a treaty of amity and alliance, and at once equip- 
ped and sent out a fleet to aid the infant nation in securing her inde- 
pendence. 

The drooping spirits of the patriots, and all friends of the cause ol 
political freedom, were revived, and energy and activity was the conse- 
quence. 

From the time that France espoused the cause of the American Rev- 
olution, no doubt of its success was expressed. Those who secretly 
favored the cause before, spoke openly, and many who had forsaken it for 
fear of a disastrous termination, now returned and boldly advocated 
independence. 

In May, .Sir Henry Clinton arrived in Philadelphia, and relieved Genera] 
Howe, as commander-in-chief of the British forces. In June follow- 
ing, he moved his army across New Jersey and proceeded to New York. 
Washington left his quarters at Valley Forge and pursued him. Coming 
up with him at Monmouth Court-House, on 28th of June, the advance 
of the Americans engaged the rear of Clinton's force, and a severe and 
bloody battle ensued ; they fought all day, and at night both armies rest- 



OF HISTORY. 215 

ed on their arms. In the morning it was discovered that the British 
forces had withdrawn. During Clinton's march to the bay shore, where he 
took ship, about two thousand of his Hessians deserted. 

In the beginning of July, Count d'Estaing arrived in command 
of a French fleet, bringing arms, ammunition, and supplies of other sorts. 

In July of this year, one of the most bloody and heart-rending acts 
which the history of the war records, took place in the lovely valley of 
Wyoming, in Pennsylvania. The able-bodied men were absent in the 
army ; the women, children, and aged men were left. A band of Tories 
and Indians, numbering more than a thousand, fell upon the defenseless 
people in broad day, murdered them, and laid their homes in ashes. A 
few escaped to the neighboring mountains, most of whom perished by 
hunger and exposure. 

About two thousand British troops were sent to Georgia by sea, and 
took possession of Savannah. This was the first attempt the British had 
made in the southern States, and was the last of the military operations 
of the year. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION — 1 779 — {Continued"). 

Tryon devastates Connecticut— Washington prepares to attack New York— Goes into winter 
quarters — Distrilintion of the American army— Effect of the presence of the French fleet 
— ^Influence of the French alliance — Condition of American affairs at this period— English 
in the South — Taking of Stony Point and Panlus Hook — Sufferings of the American army 
— Contributions and aid to the soldiers — Congress investigates condition of the army — Des- 
titute condition of the army — Clinton prosecutes the war in the South — Besieges Charles- 
ton and captures it— Marion's hand— Partisans in the South — ^Arnold's treason— Major 
Andre. 

In July, Tryon, with two thousand five hundred men, entered Connecti- 
cut, and devastated the country. He plundered New Haven, set fire to 
Fairfield and Norwalk, burned two hundred and twenty-five dwelling- 
houses, more than a hundred barns and store-houses, and five church edi- 
fices. The inhabitants were subjected to the most brutal indignities, and 
many of them murdered. 

The British commander, fearing an attack upon New York, brought his 
troops from Newport. "Washington, expecting the co-operation of the 
French fleet in the harbor, had called out the militia to aid in an attack 
upon the city ; but, as the fleet did not appear, he disbanded the militia, 
and moving his army to Morristown, went into winter quarters in the 
latter part of October. 

At the opening of this year, Washington's army was distributed in small 



2 1 6 GREA T E VENTS 

iepartments along the coast, from the mouth of the Connecticut to the 
capes of the Delaware, with his head-quarters at Middlebrook, New Jersey. 
The British were strongly posted at New York and Newport. The 
Americans were so disposed as to prevent communication between the 
British posts by land, and also to prevent a movement towards the South. 

Thus far, the French fleet had accomplished nothing of importance, ex- 
cept to cause England to increase her force, and assume a greater activity ; 
and early in the year sailed to the West Indies to watch the British 
fleet. 

The enthusiasm which the French alliance infused had partially died 
out ; many thinking the French would do all, relaxed their efforts, and the 
condition of affairs became bad in the extreme. The debt was growing ; 
four years had elapsed since the war began ; the enemy was stronger 
now than ever ; and the American army in want of supplies of almost every 
description, frequently suff"ering for food. The Tories were numerous 
and active in the South. 

Congress itself was divided in its views of the policy which was best to 
pursue. Washington wrote, at the opening of this year, that he re- 
garded the affairs of the country in a more distressed, ruinous, and de- 
plorable condition, than they had been since the commencement of the war. 

The English entered the South, and, aided by the Tories, devastated the 
country, from Virginia to Georgia ; plundering Norfolk and Portsmouth in 
Virginia, destroying villages and plantations, carrying off" cattle, horses, 
and about four thousand slaves. 

In July, General Anthony Wayne took Stony Point, which had a 
British garrison of six hundred men, and Lee took the garrison at Paulus 
Hook, now Jersey City. 

The sufferings of the American army during this winter, if possible, 
were more severe than the last. 

The Continental Congress had issued currency, which had gone on de- 
preciating until it required forty dollars of it to equal in value one in sil- 
ver. It became necessary to levy contributions upon the inhabitants 
in order to prevent starvation. New Jersey, though taxed most oppress- 
ively, remained unshaken in its patriotism. The farmers brought provisions, 
while their wives and daughters knit, sewed, spun, and wove, to supply 
garments for the destitute soldiers. 

In May of this year, Congress sent a committee to Morristown to in- 
quire into the affairs of the army. In their report they stated that the men 
had been five months without pay ; that they seldom had a week's pro- 
visions on hand at one time ; were frequently for successive days without 
meat ; that they had no feed .for their horses ; that the medical depart- 
ment was without sugar, tea, chocolate, wine, or spirits. 



OF HISTORY. 217 

Under such circumstances it is marvellous that an a Tmy could be kept 
together at all : we can attribute the patient endurance of such privations 
to no other motive than the purest patriotism. 

Clinton, bent on carrying the war into the South, sailed in January, with 
five thousand troops, for South Carolina ; landing near Charleston, he 
made preparations for besieging the city. In the month of April, Tarle- 
ton took Monk's Corners. 

The supplies being thus cut off, Lincoln surrendered on the twelfth of 
May, giving up four hundred cannon and five thousand prisoners. The 
South was overrun by the British troops under Tarleton, aided by the 
Tories. They were greatly harassed by the Whigs, and especially by a 
band known as Marion's men. So stealthily did they frequently creep 
upon them, dashing into their very camp, and as mysteriously disappear- 
ing, that they gave Marion the name of the Swamp Fox. 

General Clinton, leaving Cornwallis in command in South Carolina, re- 
turned to New York in June. 

General Gates was sent into South Carolina, and relieved De Kalb. 
Gates was defeated at Sander's Creek in August, and Sumpter, by 
Tarleton, at Fishing Creek. Though conquered, the people of the 
South were not subdued. Bands under Clark, Pickens, Marion, and 
Sumpter, carried on a guerilla warfare. Marion constantly lurked near 
some British or Tory encampment, watching his opportunity to make 
a dash, strike a blow and be off before the foe had recovered from aston- 
ishment at the audacity and impetuosity of the onset. 

In the summer of this year, the most infamous act that stained the war 
occurred. Arnold, one of the bravest and most able generals of the 
American army, was detected in making arrangements to betray the gar- 
rison under his command, and place West Point, a most important post, 
into the hands of the British. 

A young man. Major Andre, was sent to complete the arrangements 
with Arnold. The vessel which took him up the Hudson was fired on, 
and dropped down the stream, and when the business was arranged, Andr^ 
was unable to reach his vessel, and started to return to New York by land. 
Reaching Tarrytown he was stopped by three men, John Paulding, David 
Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. He took them for Tories, and told them 
he was a British ofEcer. They delivered him into the hands of Col. 
Jamison, at Peekskill. On examination he was found to be the bearer 
of papers which proved him to be a spy. He was tri'id by a court-mar- 
tial, condemned as a spy, sentenced to be hung, and on the 2d of Oct 
ober, was executed near Nyack, on the west bank of the Hudson, at a 
place called Tappan. 

In December of this year, England declared war against Holland, foi 



3 1 8 GREA T E VENTS 

protecting Ameri ,an privateers. Having previously made war with Spain, 
she was fighting France, Spain, Holland, and her revolted colonies, at the 
close of the year 1780. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION — 1 78 1 — {Continued). 

Boffenngs of the troops — Factions in Congress — Revolt of Pennsylvania troops — Arnold sent 
to Virginia — Battle of Cowpens— Oornwallis pursues Morgan— Rising of the River 
Catawba — Retreat of Morgan's force across the Yadkin — Sudden rise of the river— Retreat to 
the Dan — Sad condition and destitution of the army — Greene's fame — Preparation of Wash- 
ington to attack New York— Washington marches to Yorktown — Clinton sends Arnold to 
lay waste the country— Battle of Yorktown— Surrender of the British. 

The last year of this struggle commenced, as did those which preceded 
It, by the endurance of hardships and privations by the American soldiers. A 
want of unanimity existed in Congress, factions opposed each other, and 
no united effort was put forth for the relief of the army. 

Thirteen hundred Pennsylvania troops revolted, and under the command 
of their sergeants set out from Morristown, their winter quarters, with 
the intention of going in person to lay their wants and claims before Con- 
gress. General Wayne did all in his power to dissuade them, but they 
went forward. Congress, hearing of the revolt, sent a committee to meet 
them. They were finally induced to return to duty, by the promise of 
the committee to relieve their present necessities. They had no inten- 
tion to forsake the cause, and when two agents from Sir Henry Clinton 
came to them to induce them to join the British, they were arrested, and 
hung as spies. 

A few weeks after this event, the troops of the New Jersey line also 
became disaffected ; but in a few days the rebellion was suppressed. 
Great efforts were made to increase the army, and the people were urged 
to contribute supplies. Volunteers, however, came in slowly, and the people 
had become wearied with giving, and' many were so impoverished, by 
alternate contributions and plunderings, that they were unable to do 
more. 

The traitor Arnold was sent by Clinton in command of sixteen hundred 
men, made up of Tories and British, to ravage the eastern parts of Vir- 
ginia. 

Washington dispatched Lafayette, with twelve hundred men, expect- 
ing the French fleet would go from Newport to co-operate, hoping to cap- 
ture the traitor. But the French fleet was intercepted by a superioi 



OF HISTORY. 219 

squadron of the British, and in the engagement the French were beaten, 
and put back to Newport for repairs. This was the fourth time that 
Washington's hopes were disappointed in the aid he was promised by the 
French fleet. 

The English had had things in their own way at the South, up to this time. 
In January of this year, Comwallis sent Tarleton to destroy Morgan's force, 
which at that time was in the country between the Broad and Catawba 
Rivers, 

Morgan attempted a retreat, but was overtaken, and fought the cele- 
brated battle of the Cowpens. They went into battle with about eleven 
hundred men. Tarleton lost about six hundred, and Morgan about 
eighty men. 

Cornwallis now decided to pursue Morgan, supposing he would stop to 
rest his force, and being encumbered with prisoners, could be easily over- 
taken. He therefore destroyed his stores and baggage, and set out. 

Morgan anticipating this, left his wounded under a flag of truce, and 
made all haste to the Catawba River, and crossed it. About two hours 
after Cornwallis came up, but the river suddenly rose and destroyed the 
ford. The British were detained two days in crossing. Morgan sent off 
his prisoners, and allowed his men to rest. 

Greene, hearing of Morgan's victory, set his force in motion to meet him, 
and on the second day after the crossing of the Catawba, joined him and 
took command. He continued the retreat towards the Yadkin, which he 
crossed : just as his rear was embarking, the British advance came up, 
and the Americans lost a small part of their baggage. Here again a 
special interposition of Providence occurred to save the patriots. Imme- 
diately after the American forces had crossed the Yadkin, a heavy rain 
set in, which so swelled the river that it could not be forded, and Greene 
pressed on to the Dan, which he reached in time to get his troops over be- 
fore Cornwallis appeared on the other side. In this march, the American 
troops suffered the most severe hardships ; badly clothed, many without 
shoes. It was aptly said, that " they bled for their country at every step." 

Greene earned in the southern campaign great fame ; he fought the 
British, who were well fed, comfortably clothed, and perfectly equipped, 
with foi-ces that were ill equipped, half clad, and frequently half fed. He 
was not only successful in his attacks, but skillful in retreat, possessing a 
most remarkable ability in avoiding his foe, when he was not ready for 
him. 

Washington, early in the summer of this year, planned to attack New 
York. Clinton suspecting this, sent for reinforcements to Cornwallis, who 
at once moved North. Lafayette and Steuben hung on his rear, and 
harassed him. 

12* 



220 GREAT EVENTS 

When he reached the James they attacked him, and were repulsed. 
After he had crossed the river, he received a second order from Clinton, 
which informed him that reinforcements had arrived from Europe. He 
directed Cornwallis to keep all his troops, and fortify himself at some 
suitable point in Virginia. He chose Yorktown, at the mouth of 
York River ; here he threw up strong defenses, his troops numbering 
about eight thousand effective men, besides a formidable naval force of 
frigates, and other vessels of war. 

When Washington learned that Clinton had been reinforced, and 
Cornwallis had entrenched himself at Yorktown, he laid out extensive 
works of defense in New Jersey, as if threatening New York, and com- 
menced to concentrate his troops in Virginia. He sent word to Count de 
Grasse to enter the Chesapeake, and blockade the British fleet, and 
marched with all speed to Yorktown. 

Clinton, to divert the attention of Washington, sent the traitor Arnold 
to Connecticut, his native State, to lay waste the country. On this expedi- 
tion the traitor outdid himself in cruelty and wanton destruction. 

But Washington pressed on towards Yorktown. De Grasse arrived and 
landed three thousand troops ; these, united to the forces of Lafayette, 
Wayne, and Steuben, and the army under the direct command of Wash- 
ington, made a force of twelve thousand, besides the Virginia militia. A 
combined attack upon the British lines was made on the gth of October, 
and continued for ten days, when the British surrendered the land forces 
to Washington, and the naval force to Count de Grasse. The army num- 
bered seven thousand men. This battle virtually closed the war. The 
French army went into winter quarters in Virginia, and the American army 
wintered at Newburg, on the Hudson. 

In the spring of 1782, England consented to treat with America, Hos- 
tilities ceased ; and in January, 1783, a treaty of peace was signed by 
both parties, at Paris, and on the 19th of April, 1783, just eight years 
after the battle of Lexington, it was proclaimed in America, 



OF HISTORY. 221 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

WAR OF 1812. 

O*adition of the country at the close of the Revolntion— Methods adopted to produce prosper, 
ity — Immigration— Difficulties between United States and the mother-country— Treaty- 
France demands assistance from America— America prepares for war- Sea fight — Amer- 
ica sent envoys to France, who arranged the difficulties — Difficulty with Turkey — War 
with Turkey — Complications with England and France, and blockades declared — Right 
of search claimed by Great Britain— Chesapeake fired upon by a British vessel — Indian 
hostilities broke out— Declaration of war— Bill passed by Congress to raise an army— War 
vessels got ready for sea— Letters of Marque granted — British view of the success on the 
ocean — Disasters on the land— Battle of Bew Orleans— Proclamation of peace — War with 
Algiers — Verplanck's address. 

The War of Independ .nee had laid waste the most populous and highly 
improved parts of the country. The people were impoverished, commerce 
was destroyed, and the new government saddled with an enormous debt. 
This '^as the price the infant nation had paid for political freedom. But 
ihe men who had carried the country triumphantly through the Revolu- 
tion, were not deterred by the formidable work before them. They or- 
ganized a more perfect Union ; originated a financial system which af- 
forded pecuniary relief ; passed laws to encourage commerce and home 
manufactures ; invited immigration, offering an asylum for the oppressed 
of all lands and nationalities ; secured to every citizen political freedom 
and religions liberty. 

The disturbing influences in Europe, to which the French Revolution 
of 1790 gave birth, sent many emigrants to the new world, among whom 
were not only artizans, mechanics, and laborers, but men of wealth came, 
and embarked their capital in real estate, commerce, and manufactures. 
By these means the nation became signally prosperous. Population in- 
creased with unexampled rapidity, and the solid wealth of the nation kept 
pace with the increase of inhabitants. 

In 1794, difficulties arose between the United States and the mother- 
country, as England was still called. Great Britain complained that the 
Royalists, or Tories, were not allowed to recover their estates ; and that 
British subjects were prevented from collecting debts contracted before 
the war. 

On the other hand, America charged Great Britain with retaining pos 
session of military posts on the western frontier, contrary to treaty stip- 
ulations, and with the invasion of the rights of navigation on the high seas. 

Congress passed acts for raising an army and erecting defenses, and 
sent an envoy to England to negotiate a treaty with the British 
Government. Mr. John Jay was the person to whom this business was 



222 GREAT EVENTS 

intrusted. He returned in •the spring of 1795, having seemed an agree- 
ment on the part of England to give up the posts. But she still asserted 
her superiority on the ocean, and claimed the right to search American 
vessels on the high seas. But this being the best that could at that time 
be obtained, it was reluctantly accepted. 

About this time, France employed all her powers of persuasion to in 
duce America to aid her in the wars against other European powers. They 
even went so far as to threaten to levy tiibute upon the United States. 
But America persisted in a strict neutrality, replying to the threat, that 
they would tax themselves "Millions for defense, but not one ccni foT 
tributeT France commenced depredations upon the commerce of Amer- 
ica, capturing her vessels at sea, and sent home her minister, refusing to 
receive another till her demands were acceded to. The United States 
at once prepared for war, raised an army, and sent out vessels in pursuit of 
the French cruisers ; but, at the same time, despatched envoys to Paris, to 
adjust the matter, if possible, and avoid hostilities. 

One of the American frigates, the Constellation, at sea, engaged the 
French frigate LTnsurgent, and captured her. Soon after this, the French 
Government, finding their treatment of the United States not calculated 
to secure their aid, proposed to open negotiations. Mr. Adams, who was 
then president, at once sent but commissioners to arrange the difficulties. 
Napoleon was then in power, and the matter was adjusted in a friendly 
manner. 

In 1803, the Turkish power in the north of Africa became trouble- 
some. They had for years exacted tribute from all nations whose ships 
entered their ports. They took American vessels, appropriated the ships 
and cargoes, and enslaved the passengers and crews. The United States 
determined to put an end to these depredations, and sent out a squadron 
to blockade the port of Tripoli. After some fighting, both on land and 
sea, the bashaw, becoming alanned, sued for peace, and the American 
prisoners were given up. This short war gave the nation some renown 
as a naval power. 

The war between France and England had damaged the commerce of 
these two nations, by forcing their merchant vessels from the ocean. 

America was greatly benefited by these circumstances ; she being neutral, 
her ships did most of the carrying. English merchants complained that 
America was taking advantage of neutrality to convey goods between the 
ports of the nations at war. 

For this reason American vessels were captured, or serzed in port, and 
condemned. England declared the western coast of Continental Europe 
iu a state of blockade. Napoleon, in retaliation, declared the coast oi 
Great Britain in a state of blockade. 



OF HISTORY. 223 

trench and English cruisers now captured American merchant ships, 
and drove them from the ocean. 

England claimed the right to search American merchant vessels, and 
take from them any men whom they believed to be British subjects. Many 
persons of American birth were in this way impressed, and compelled to 
serve in British war vessels. 

Out of these searches and impressments much bitterness arose. The 
commanders of the American ships gave up their men with reluctance 
and very bad grace ; while the British officers were insolent and arrogant, 
exercising their assumed right in an offensive manner. The United States 
sent commissioners to England, who were received in a friendly manner. 
The British government only claimed the right to search our vessels for 
deserters ; and, though they refused to relinquish the right, agreed to 
issue orders to their commanders to exercise the right with prudence and 
courtesy. 

When the treaty arrived the president refused to accept it. 
' In 1807, the United States frigate Chesapeake was fired upon, and four 
men taken from her. This outrage was promptly disavowed by Great 
Britain, and a special messenger was sent over to arrange the difficulty. 
War was thus kept off until 1812, when the Indians on the northwestern 
frontier commenced hostilities. It was believed that they had been in- 
stigated by English agency ; this, with the practice of searching American 
ships and impressing their seamen, so irritated the United States, that by 
the recommendation of Mr. Madison, Congress declared war against 
Great Britain, June 18, 1812. At that time the number of inhabitants had 
increased to about seven and a half millions. 

A bill was passed to raise a regular army of twenty thousand men 
and to increase it to seventy thousand by accepting fifty thousand volun- 
teers. 

The war vessels fit for sea were put in commission, and others made 
ready. The merchants were allowed to arm and defend themselves, and 
letters of marque were issued. 

The Americans were remarkably successful on the ocean. In 1813, 
the following editorial appeared in the London Times : 

" We witnessed the gloom which the taking of the Guerriere by the 
American frigate Constitution, cast over high and honorable minds ; it is 
not merely that an English frigate has been taken, after a brave resist- 
ance, but it has been done by a new enemy. Five hundred British 
vessels and three frigates have been taken from us in seven months by 
the Americans. Can the English people hear this unmoved ? Down to 
this moment not an American frigate has struck her flag ; they insult and 
laugh at us ; they leave their ports when they please and return when it 



224 



GREAT EVENTS 



suits their convenience ; they traverse the Atlantic ; they beset the West 
India Islands ; they advance to the very chops of the channel ; they 
parade along the coast of South America ; nothing chases, nothing inter- 
cepts, nothing engages them, but yields to them a triumph." On the 
land the Americans met with disasters. The British landed a force in 
Maryland, near Baltimore, marched to Washington, and took it. They 
set fire to the public buildings, and burned fhe national library. No excuse 
can be offered for this unnecessary destruction of property. The British 
also landed a veteran force at New Orleans, where they were defeated by 
Jackson. The British force numbered fourteen thousand veteran troops ; 
Jackson's entire force consisted of six thousand, a considerable portion of 
whom were raw, undisciplined recruits ; and many were without arms. 

On the 8th of January, 1815, the British assaulted the American works 
with great gallantry ; but so secure were the American defenses, that after 
three spirited attacks, the British withdrew, having sustained a loss of 
two thousand men. The loss on the side of the Americans was seven 
killed and six wounded. 

A little more than a month after the battle of New Orleans, peace was 
proclaimed (February 17, 1815). Both nations had enough of war, but 
in the treaty no mention was made of the right of search. 

The president issued a proclamation, making known the fact that the 
country was at peace. A day of thanksgiving to Almighty God was ap- 
pointed and observed by the nation. 

During the progress of the war with Great Britain, the Dey of Algiers 
commenced again to capture American ships, and reduce their crews to 
slavery. 

In May of 1S15, a squadron, under the command of Decatur, was sent 
to Northern Africa. On entering the Mediterranean, it encountered the 
largest frigate of the Dey's navy, and captured her, and before reaching 
Algiers, another was taken. This brought the Dey to terms. Decatur 
compelled him to go on board his ship and sign a treaty, by which he 
bound himself to surrender all American prisoners without ransom, to 
give up all claims to tribute, and to abstain from acts of piracy. 

This peace, so easily conquered, together with the downfall of Napo- 
leon, left the ocean open, and the flag of the United States M^as soon found 
flying in the sea-ports of the world. 

The results of civilization and political liberty are shown in the follow- 
ing extract from an address, delivered by Gulian C. Verplanck, in New 
York City, 1818 : 

" The study of the history of most other nations fills the mind with sen- 
timents not unlike those which the American traveller feels, on entering 
the venerable and lofty cathedral of some proud old city of Europe. Its 



OF HISTORY. 22- 

solemn grandeur, its vastness, its obscurity, strike awe to his heart. From 
the richly-painted windows, filled with sacred emblems and strange, an- 
tique forms, a dim, religious light falls around. A thousand recollections 
of romance and poetry, and legendary story, came thronging in upon him. 
He is surrounded by the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors 
of ancient art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry. 

"What names does he read, upon them? Those of princes and nobles 
who are now remembered only for their vices ; and of sovereigns, at whose 
death no tears were shed, and whose memories lived not an hour in the 
affections of their people There, too, he sees other names, long familiar 
to him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the blood-stained 
soldier of fortune ; the orator, who was ever the ready apologist of tyr- 
anny ; great scholars, who were the pensioned flatterers of power ; and 
poets, who profaned the high gift of genius to pamper the vices of a cor- 
rupted court. 

" Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical temple of fame, 
reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, 
is almost exclusively dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Or 
rather, like the Pantheon of Rome, it stands in calm and sevei-e beauty 
amid the ruins of ancient magnificence and the " toys of modern state." 
Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. The pure light 
of heaven enters from above, and sheds an equal and serene radiance 
around. As the eye wanders about its extent, it beholds the unadorned 
monuments of brave and good men, who have greatly bled or toiled for 
their country, or it rests on votive tablets inscribed with the names of the 
best benefactors of mankind. 

'Patriots are here, in Freedom's battles slain, 
Priests whose long lives were closed without a stain, 
Bards worthy him who breathed the poet's mind, 
Founders of arts that dignify mankind. 
And lovers of our race, whose labors gave 
Their names a memory tliat defies the grave.' * 

Doubtless, this is a subject upon which we may be justly proud. But theie, 
is another consideration, which, if it did not naturally arise of itself, 
would be pressed upon us by the taunts of European criticism. What 
has this nation done to repay the world for the benefits we have received 
from others ? We have been repeatedly told, and sometimes, too. in a 
tone of affected impartiality, that the highest praise which can fairly be given 
to the American mind, is that of possessing an enlightened selfishness ; 
that if the philosophy and talents of this country, with all their effects, 
were forever swept into oblivion, the loss would be felt only by ourselves ; 

* Virgil, translated by W. C. Bryaut. 



226 GREAT EVENTS 

and that if, to the accuracy of this general charge, the labors of Franklin 

present an illustrious, it is still but a solitary exception. 

" The answer may be given, confidently and triumphantly. Without aban- 
doning the fame of our eminent men, whom Europe has been slow and re- 
luctant to honor, we would reply : that the intellectual power of this people 
has exerted itself in conformity to the general system of our institutions 
and manners ; and therefore, that for the proof of its existence and the mea- 
sure of its force, we must look not so much to the work of prominent indi- 
viduals, as to the great aggregate results ; and if Europe has hitherto been 
willfully blind to the value of our example, and the exploits of our sagacity, 
courage, invention, and freedom, the blame must rest with her, and not 
with America. 

" Is it nothing to have, in less than half a century, exceedingly improved 
the sciences of political economy, of law, and of medicine, with all their 
auxiliary branches ; to have enriched human knowledge by the accumula- 
tion of a great mass of useful facts and observations, and to have augment- 
ed the power and the comforts of civilized man, by miracles of mechanical 
invention ? Is it nothing to have given the world examples of disinter- 
ested patriotism, of political wisdom, of public virtue ; of learning, elo- 
quence, and valor, never exerted save for some praiseworthy end ? It is 
sufficient to have briefly suggested these considerations ; every mind 
would anticipate me in filling up the details." 

We may follow with this thought. Is it nothing to have subdued a wil- 
derness of three and a half millions of square miles ? Is it nothing to 
have peopled this vast territory with forty millions of people, in two and 
a half centuries ? Is it nothing to have connected all parts of this vast 
territory by railroad communication ? Is it nothing to have given to the 
world the telegraph ? Is it nothing to have established the liberty of the 
press ? Is it nothing to have set up the common school — not common 
because it is inferior, but common as the light of Heaven is common — 
where every son and daughter of America may enjoy the means of enlight 
ened intelligence ? 

CHAPTER XIX. 

LIFE IN ITALY AND SPAIN DURING THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

Rise of cathedrals— Houses of Florence— Condottieri— Monks and monasteries— Pilgrimages- 
Life in Venice— The Guilds of Florence— Italian amusements— Literature and art— Chivalrj 
in Spain— Three military orders— The Inquisition— Auto da Ffr— Learned Ladies— Roya 
dress— Popular sports— The drama. 

During the last years of the tenth century a great horror fell on all 
Christendom. It was everywhere believed that the last day of the year 
999 would close the book of human history. And so everything was ne- 
glected. But when the mornings of looo A.D. grew brighter as the yeai 
rolled on, hope revived. Men felt that they had a new lease of life , 



OF HISTORY. 



227 



and one striking form their gratitude took, was the rearing of those mag- 
nificent cathedrals, which are the noblest monuments of the Middle Ages. 

In Italy, as over all Europe, many a solemn minster rose. Amongst the 
Italian temples of that date were the Cathedral of Pisa, and St. Mark's at 
Venice. In Italy the pure Gothic architecture never took root. There 
are, indeed, buildings called Gothic there ; but the style is an awkward 
mixture of classic and Gothic. There are specimens of Norman buildings 
in southern Italy, and traces exist of Moorish mason-work too, especially 
in Sicily, 

The history of early Florence may be read in the dark, square, rough- 
hewn mansions built for her restless nobles. Four piles of building, un- 
adorned even by a pillar, surrounded a central coui-t. On the summit 
frowned a heavy cornice, more like a rampart, as indeed it was. The 
lower story rose some thirty feet, either without windows, or pierced by a 
few grated loop-holes. Within such dark prison-houses the tyrant nobles 
were often forced to shut themselves, when the angry commons came 
surging like a stormy sea down the street, with pikes, and cross-bows, and 
shouts of war. 

The constant feuds of the Italian towns drew into the peninsula hordes 
of mercenary soldiers. These Free Lances, or Companies of Adventurers, 
were led by captains called Condottieri. From city to city they roved, 
living by murder and pillage, ready to draw sword in the cause of the 
highest bidder. Sometimes the chances of war cast them to the head of 
the state, in whose cause or against whose freedom they were fighting. 
Since it was their object to make their profession pay, they lengthened out 
war into campaigns ; and often for the length of a summer day rival bands 
of these rovers, tilting gracefully, perhaps unhorsing a foe now and again, 
fought without bloodshed, merely playing at soldiers. 

Everywhere throughout Italy the shaven crown and sad-colored robe of 
the monk were to be seen. These men were often of the highest birth. 
The novice generally spent his preparatory year in herding swine and 
other drudgery ; and sometimes, at the time of admission, was forced to 
lay his cowled head on the bare earth for three days and nights, while he 
mused on the mysteries of religion. And hard was the discipline by which 
the rank of saintship was sometimes won. St. Romuald, founder of many 
monasteries, passed several of his last years in perfect silence. The chief 
monasteries of Italy were placed high among the wooded cliffs of the Appe- 
nines. From the eighth to the thirteenth century most ot the religious 
orders arose. The close of this period was marked by the institution of 
the two orders of begging friars — Franciscans and Dominicans — beneath 
whose foul, patched gowns and girdles of rope too often there lurked 
hearts swollen with lust and pride. 

8* 



2 28 GREAT EVENTS 

The devotion of the people found vent chiefly in pilgrimages. The 
Holy House of the Virgin, at Loretto, placed nairaculously, so the story 
went, on the hill, was a favorite resort of remorseful penitents. The 
Jubilee Pilgrimages drew crowds to Rome every fifty years. And for 
three months of 1399, through a,ll Italy, bands of penitents, dressed in 
white, with crucifix in hand, went singing a low, wailing hymn to the 
Virgin. It was no uncommon thing, about the same time, to see the 
Flagellants trooping along among the vineyards or through the city 
streets, with bleeding backs and limbs, on which their own cruel hands 
were laying the scourge. 

In Venice the merchants went on 'Change in the little square of the 
Rialto. In the cool evenings the bridges were thronged with sailors, 
glass-workers, and silk-weavers. The waters of the canal were alive with 
the black-peaked gondolas. Faction-fights, sanctioned by the authorities, 
commonly took place on the Bridge of St, Barnabas, where black cap and 
sash slashed with stiletto or sword at his opposite neighbor, who, dwelling 
on the other side of the Grand Canal, wore red. Spies crept everywhere in 
Venice. The terror of the time has been already spoken of, when often 
in the dead midnight, a sullen splash in the waters told but too surely that 
to-morrow would see in some princely house a vacant chair that would 
never be filled again. 

The citizens of Florence were of two grades — Greater and Les'i. The 
seven Greater trades were lawyers, dealers in foreign cloth, dealers in 
wool, silk-mercers, and, higher still, furriers, apothecaries, and goldsmiths. 
Among the fourteen Less guilds were butchers, smiths, shoemakers, build- 
ers. The seven Greater had each its own consul, council, and gonfalonicK 
or standard-bearer, who led the guild to war. Such was the arrangement 
of the Guelph Constitution of Florence, formed in 12^6. 

Shows of various kinds were provided for the people by the rulers. The 
Carnival — wildest of modern Italian revels — was in the Middle Ages a 
religious festival only. There were, of course, in a land of song, many 
minstrels. Sometimes, as at Mantua in 1340, a court of pastime was pro- 
claimed, to which, from all parts of Italy, resorted a motley crowd, princes 
and nobles mingling with actors, rope-dancers, and clowns. The glitter- 
ing, many-colored Harlequin of our Christmas pantomimes, and his part- 
ner, Columbine, made their first appearance on the Italian comic stage. 
The tragedy of Punch and Judy, too, so often enacted in our streets, Kad 
its origin in the Italian puppet-show. The lighter amusements and 
pageants of chivalry, such as contests in music and poetry, and mock-t»ials 
upon points of honor, prevailed to a considerable extent in Italy ; but 
rougher sports, like the tournament, had scarcely any home in the 
peninsula. 



OF HISTORY. 229 

The court of the Florentine Medici shone conspicuous as the most 
splendid scene of mediseval life in Italy. The Roman court of the 
Borgias, a Spanish family, of whom two held the popedom (Calixtus III. 
and Alexander VI.), presented .a spectacle of gilded and jewelled crime 
hardly paralleled in history. 

Her works of literature and art give unfading lustre to mediaeval Italy. 
Dante and Petrarch are foremost among her poets ; and though all must 
lament the licentious taint which sullies his pages, none can help acknow- 
ledging the graceful beauty of many of Boccaccio's " Hundred Tales." 
The noonday of Italian art had not yet come. But to the close of the 
Middle Ages belongs Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of " The Last Sup- 
per." Born in the valley of the Arno in 1452, he drew his last breath at 
Fontainebleau, in the arms of King Francis I. of France (15 19). 

Spain. — Chivalry lingered in Spain long after it had died out in other 
parts of Europe. It received its death-blow from the sarcastic pen of 
Cervantes, whose inimitable " Don Quixote " turned the knight-errant into 
undying ridicule. The hostility of Moors and Spaniards contributed much 
to keep alive the spirit of knighthood, for the Moors were brilliant cava- 
liers, skilled in all knightly exercises, and therefore foemen well worthy of 
the Spanish steel. The Moors of Granada especially were noted for their 
skill with the cross-bow, and in horsemanship. The chivalry of the 
Spanish Moors displayed itself in the freedom granted to their wives and 
daughters, who, unlike the women of Mahometan lands in general, 
mingled freely in the most public society. The learned ladies attended 
academic meetings ; and the fair sex, as with the Christians, rewarded the 
victors in the tournament. 

Three great military brotherhoods succeeded the dominion of the 
Templars and Hospitallers in Spain. These were the Orders of St. Jago, 
Calatrava, and Alcantara. 

The chief object of the Order of St. Jago (St. James), which was estab- 
lished by papal bull in 1 175, was to protect from the attacks of the Arabs 
those who were making a pilgrimage to the saint's tomb in Galicia. The 
cavaliers wore a white mantle, embroidered with a sword and the escalop 
shell, which was the device of their patron. The knights of Calatrava, 
whose order was established in 1164, kept perfect silence at table and in 
bed, ate meat only three times a week, and slept sword by side. The 
knights of Alcantara wore a white mantle with a green cross. 

The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella was remarkable for the establish- 
ment of the Inquisition in Spain. Four priests, armed with terrible 
powers, were sent in 1480 to commence operations in Seville, Pope Sixtus 
IV. having already issued a bull to authorize their appointment. Ere a 
year had passed, three hundred Jews had perished. Suddenly and silently 



230 



GREAT EVENTS 



the accused was snatcn :d from his friends. None but his jailer and a 
priest were .permitted to see him. If he refused to confess his guilt, the 
torture was applied in a dungeon, whose thick walls no cry could pierce. 
Then, with dislocated joints and crushed-bones, he was flung into a dark- 
cell once more, perhaps not to leave it again but for the last sad scene. 

This was the Auto da Fe (Act of Faith). Clad in black, the highest 
nobles of Spain bore the flag of the Inquisition. The Romish priests 
stood round, robed in their gorgeous vestments. The wretched victims 
were brought out to die, clad in san benitos. These were long robes of 
coarse wool, dyed yellow, and painted with a red cross and the figures of 
devils and flames. The populace thronged to witness the exciting spec 
tacle ; and a savage joy thrilled the assembled crowds as the red-tongued 
flame licked up the life of the so-called heretics. 

In the days of Isabella the study of Latin and rhetoric was fashionable 
among the ladies of Spain. The queen herself was a woman of much 
literary taste, speaking her own tongue with elegance, and versed, too, in 
several modern languages. Latin she studied after her accession, and took 
only a year to gain great proficiency in it. She took delight in the col- 
lection of manuscripts, which in that day were, according to Moorish 
fashion, bound in bright colors, and richly decorated. We read of Spanish 
ladies of this time lecturing from the university chairs upon classical 
literature and kindred subjects. 

The first printing-press in Spain seems to have been set up at Valencia 
in 1474 ; and the first book printed there was a collection of songs in 
honor of the Virgin. 

A meeting of Ferdinand and Isabella, during the Moorish war, is thus 
described by the curate of Los Palacios : " The queen sat in a saddle- 
chair embossed with gold and silver, upon a chestnut mule, whose hous- 
ings were of crimson, and bridle of gold-embroidered satin. The infanta, 
her daughter, wore a scarlet mantle of the Moorish fashion, a black hat 
laced with gold, and a skirt of velvet. The king figured in a crimson 
doublet, .and breeches of yellow satin, a cuirass and Moorish scimitar. 
Both king and queen wore a close-fitting coif of fine stuff" below the hat, 
to confine the hair." 

The tournament was the great pastime of the day. Splendid galleries, 
hung with silk and cloth of gold, enclosed the lists. After the day's tilt- 
ing, music and dancing enlivened the evening hours. Bull-fights — now 
the grand national sport of Spain— and the graceful tilt of reeds were 
foremost among the popular amusements. 

We find dramatic entertainments taking their rise in Spain, as in oui 
own country, in the m}steries or sacred plays of the clergy. A law, 
passed in the thirteenth century to forbid some profanities that were 



OF HISTORY. 231 

creeping into the performances, laid down as fit subjects for exhibition, 
the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of our Saviour. Towards the close 
of the Middle Ages we read of the Spanish stage being constructed of a 
few planks laid upon benches. The "properties" — consisting of four 
dresses of white fur and gilt leather, with accompanying beards, wigs, and 
crooks — were then carried in a single sack. 

GREAT NAMES OF THE SIXTH PERIOD. 

John Faust, a goldsmith and engraver of Mentz — one of the earliest 
printers — associated for five years with Guttenberg in the working of 
a press with movable metal types (1450-55) — first work printed, "An 
Indulgence of Pope Nicholas V." — died 1466, at Paris. 

Thomas 'A Kempis, bom about 1380, at Kempen, near Cologne — studied 
at Deventer — became a canon of the monastery of Mount St. Agnes 
— transcribed the Bible, the Missal, and other religious books — good 
copyist, and fond of it — said to be author of four books of great 
merit, entitled, " De Imitatione Christi," but he transcribed these 
from older manuscripts. The work is more justly ascribed to John 
Gerson, of Paris, who died 1429 — T. ^A Kempis died in 1471, aged 

90. 

Angelo Politian, born in Tuscany, 1454 — in after life took the name 
of Poliziano — a great friend of Lorenzo de Medici, whose children he 
educated — professor of Latin and Greek at Florence — wrote scholia 
and notes to many ancient authors — translated into Latin the History 
of Herodian — noted also for his Italian poems — wrote " Orfeo," which 
is said to be the earliest specimen of the opera, or Italian musical 
drama. 

Leonardo da Vinci, born in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, in 14^2 
^a famous painter — remarkable for his knowledge of other arts and 
sciences — his works are not many — one of his greatest is " The Last 
Supper," painted on the wall of the Dominican convent of the Ma- 
donna delle Grazie — wrote very many treatises — lived much at Rome, 
but died at Fontainebleau, in France, 2d May, 1519, aged 67. 

Sanzio Raphael, born at Urbino, 6th April, 1483 — perhaps the greatest 
of modem painters — lived both at Florence and Rome — *he " Trans- 
figuration" usually cons'dered his master-piece — famous for his Ma- 
donnas — died on his birth-day, 1520, at the early age of 37. 



SEVENTH PERIOD. 

PBOM THE REFORMATION TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE REFORMATION. 

Central Point: THE DIET OF AUGSBURG, 1530 A.D. 

Sarlier Protestants — Sonrces of the Reformation — Three central figures — ^Lnther's early days 
— The cloisters of Erfurt — Professor at Wittenherg — Sale of indulgences— The ninety-five 
theses— The disputation at Leipsic— Burning of the papal bull— The Diet of Worms — The 
Castle of Wartburg— Ulric Zwingle— Diet of Augsburg— Last days of Luther— John Calvin 
— Settles in Geneva — Stay in Strasburg- His return to Geneva — His code of discipline — 
Death and character. 

There were Protestants before I.uther. Paulinus of Aquileia, in the 
days of Charlemagne ; the Albigenses, in sunny Languedoc ; the Wal- 
denses, in the valleys of Piedmont ; John Wycliffe, in England ; Huss and 
Jerome, the Bohemians, who perished in the flames at Constance ; and 
Savonarola, who met the same fate at Florence, all nobly deserved the 
noble name. 

But it was not until the printing-presses of Guttenberg and Faust and 
Caxton had multiplied books, especially the Bible, a thousandfold, and 
the capture of Constantinople by the Turks had scattered far and wide 
the Greeks and their language — thus giving to the West the key to the 
right understanding of the New Testament — that central Europe, in the 
gray dawn of a new era, could see the shackles laid on her by Rome, and 
summon all her might to tear them from her burdened limbs. 

Then, in the fulness of the time, Martin Luther arose, and, somewhat 
later, John Calvin and Ulric Zwingle, the three leaders of the Continental 
Reformation. Grouped round these three grand central figures stood a 
little band of brave spirits, foremost among whom were Melancthon, the 
friend of Luther ; Lefevre and Farel, the associates of Calvin. 

Luther, the son of a miner, was born at Eisleben, in Saxony, in Decem- 
ber, 1483. While at scl ool in Eisenach, he used to sing in the streets for 
bread — a custom which was common among the German students. 
Entering the University of Erfurt, he took his degree in 1505 ; he was 
then twenty-two. 

Toward the close of his college life, which was free and jovial, three 



GREA T E VENTS OF HIS TOR Y. 233 

events stirred his mind powerfully : he found in the library a Latin Bible ; 
a dear friend died ; and he himself was sick nigh unto death. Calling 
his fellow-students around him one night, he entertained them at a merry 
supper ; and scarcely had they left his lodging, when he stood knocking at 
the door of the Augustine convent, with two books in his hand — a Virgil 
and a Plautus. His three years within the cloisters of Erfurt were spent 
in terrible mental struggles, and in vain attempts to gain peace by monk- 
ish fastings and penances. It was not until the advice of Staupitz, his 
vicar-general, directed him to the Bible and the works of St. Augustine, 
that Luther began to see light. We, who glory in the privileges of Pro- 
testantism, owe a deep debt of gratitude to that wise and kind-hearted 
priest, who, pitying pale and haggard young Brother Martin, showed him 
the tree of life. 

In 1508 Luther was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the Univer- 
sity of Wittenberg. There he won renown as a bold and original 
preacher. The little old wooden chapel of the convent could not hold his 
audience. The great idea of the Reformation was now taking full posses 
sion of his soul. So strong was its influence, that when he went to Rome 
in 15 10 or II, on a certain mission, and tried to climb Pilate's staircase on 
his knees, as an act of penance, his conscience never ceased to thunder in 
his soul, " The just shall live by faith." The Rome of that day he found 
to be a hotbed of infidelity, blasphemy, and crime. In 15 12 he was 
made Doctor of Divinity. So far we have traced the outlines of his pre- 
paration ; now for his great work. 

Leo X., in want of money to build St. Peter's at Rome, authorized the 
sale of indulgences. John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, arrived within a 
few miles of Wittenberg with a bundle of these paper lies, and the simple 
coimtry-folk of Saxony crowded round his counter to buy. With brow 
of brass and lungs of leather, he shouted all day long the wonderful powers 
of the indulgence. " Drop a penny in my box for some poor wretch in 
purgatory," said he, " and the moment it clinks on the bottom, the freed 
soul flies up to heaven." Luther heard of these things, and saw their 
effect upon some of his own flock, who, believing themselves pardoned 
by the indulgence they had bought, refused to submit to his direction. 
He felt the time had come for the first blow in a momentous struggle. 
" God willing," said he, " I will beat a hole in his drum." 

Then, shaping his belief on the subject of the indulgences Oct. 31j 
into ninety-five theses or propositions, he sent a copy of 1517 
them to the Archbishop of Magdeburg ; and on the same A.D. 

day — -that which we call Hallow-Eve — he nailed another 
copy, signed with his name, on the gate of the Castle Church of Witten 
berg. In these theses Luther did not altogether deny the power of the 



234 GREAT EVENTS 

Church to grant absolution ; but he maintained that, unless there was 
real contrition on the part of a sinner, an indulgence was of no avail. 
This public defiance was the starting-point of the Reformation. The news 
ran with lightning-speed through Germany and Europe. 

Tetzel, retiring to Frankfort on the Oder, issued a list of counter theses, 
maintaining the infallibility and the supreme authority of the pope. These 
were burned by the students of Wittenberg, who entered heart and soul 
into the cause of their professor. Pope Leo, a literary and architectural 
amateur, heard a buzz in Germany, but treated it lightly, as a monkish 
quarrel. " This Luther," said he, " is a man of genius ; he writes well." 

Cajetan, the papal legate, a smooth and subtle Italian, was foiled in an 
attempt to make Luther retract at a conference held at Augsburg. Mil- 
titz, a German, had apparently better success — ^having enticed Luther into 
a conditional promise to keep silence upon the disputed points. 

The disputation of Leipsic, however, proved that Luther had not mere- 
ly drawn the sword, but had flung away the scabbard. When that man, 
of middle size, so thin as to seem mere skin and bone, yet with nothing 
forbidding or sad in his bright, happy face, mounted the platform in the 
royal hall of Duke George, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, those 
who sat around — the noblest, and wisest, and most learned 
June, in the land — must have wondered at the daring of the solitary 

1519 monk. Yet not solitary, for the shield of God was over him ; 
A.D, and thousands of German hearts blessed him where he 

stood. Dr. Eck, Professor of Divinity at Ingolstadt, a man 
noted through all Germany for skill in controversy, was his rival. Taking 
his stand upon the text, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
my Church," Eck maintained the supremacy of the pope. Luther apply- 
ing the word " rock" to Christ, contended that He was the sole and abso- 
lute Head of the Church. So the fencing went on for days, and they 
parted, each claiming the victory. 

During the following summer, Luther published a few pages of an ad- 
dress to the Christian nobles of Germany, in which, with that strong, blunt 
speech that he was noted for, he characterized the seat of papacy as a 
devil's nest. His work " On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church," fol- 
lowed in autumn. 

At length the thunder of Rome broke forth. A bull was published, 
declaring Luther a heretic, ordering his writings to be burned, 

Dec. lOj and summoning him to Rome within sixty days. The crisis 

1520 had come, and bravely the monk of Saxony met it. One 
A.D. winter day, gathering the students and townsfolk of Witten- 
berg to the Elster Gate, he cast the papal bull, a docu- 
ment once so potent and terrible, into the flames of a fire of wood. 



OF HISTORY. 235 

A few months later he set out for Worms, where the young emperor, 
Charles V., was holding his first Diet of the German States. Greatly had 
the soul of Luther rejoiced when he received a summons to plead his cause 
in so proud a presence. He journeyed slowly, crowds thronging round his 
coach, and joyous music welcoming him at every stage. Friendly warn- 
ings met him ; a heavy sickness seized him on the way*; yet still he 
pressed undaunted on. And when the roofs and spires of Worms rose in 
view, standing up in his carriage, he sang the famous hymn, " Ein feste 
Burg ist unser Gott," which has ever since borne his name. That night, 
till very late, his inn was thronged with nobles and scholars. But when 
all were gone, alone, upon his knees, he sobbed out a broken prayer, cast- 
ing himself at this hour of great need entirely upon the help of God. 

Next day, as the April sun was near its setting, he came before the em- 
peror, who sat enthroned among his splendid courtiers. It 
was a striking contrast — a pale monk against a brilliant April 17j 
court. As at Leipsic, his cheek was thin ; but there was that 1521 
within his heart which could brave the dark looks of the red- A.D. 
robed cardinals and violet-clad bishops, the sneers of dressy 
Spaniards, or the wrath of the great emperor himself. Eck rose to ask 
him if he would retract his works. Luther required a day to prepare his 
reply ; and next day he closed a two hours' speech in German and in Latin 
thus : " Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor 
dare retract anything ; for my conscience is a captive to God's word, and 
it is netiher safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I take my 
stand ; I can do no otherwise. So help me God." 

Paul himself might have spoken the brave and honest words. He was 
then dismissed from Worms, the emperor having declared his resolve to 
treat him as a heretic. Luther's own epitome, in a letter to a friend, of 
the proceedings of these three momentous days is a gem of condensation. 
"Are the books yours?" — "Yes." " Will you revoke, or not ? " — "No." 
■ " Get you gone then." 

On his way home, he was seized by a band of armed men in masks, and 
carried to the Castle of the Wartburg up among the mountains. This is 
said to have been done by his friend, the Elector of Saxony, to keep him out 
of harm's way. There he lived for about a year disguised as a knight, ram- 
bling, hunting, and writing. During this retirement he began his great work 
the translation of the Bible into German. Before he left Wartburg he had 
finished the New Testament ; but the entire work was not completed 
until 1534. The news that Carlstadt and other extreme Reformers were 
carrying things with a high hand at Wittenberg, smashing images, and 
seeking to banish from the university all books but the Bible, called 
Luther down from the mountains. Then came a controversy with Carl 



236 GREAT EVENTS 

stadt, who was forced to flee from Saxony to Switzerland. A quarrel be- 
tween Luther and Erasmus occurred about the same time. 

In 1524, Luther threw off his monk's dress ; in the following year he 
married Catherine Von Bora, an escaped nun. About the same time the 
Peasants' War, excited by the Anabaptists under Munzer, arose in the 
Black Forest, and raged throughout the Rhine provinces, ending in the 
slaughter of fifty thousand people. Luther, whose enemies blamed him 
for this outbreak, took the rashness of the misguided peasants deeply to 
heart, and inveighed bitterly against their mad actions. 

In 1529, the Landgrave of Hesse, desirous of a union between the Re- 
formers of Germany and Switzerland, invited Luther and Zwingle to meet 
at Marburg. 

Zwingle was born in 1484 — a Swiss farmer's son. He saw service early 
in life, as chaplain to the Swiss troops in Italy. After he was settled as a 
preacher at home, the sale of indulgences excited his anger at Einsiedlen, 
as it had excited Luther's at Wittenberg. At Zurich, somewhat later, he 
preached reform more boldly still, and won for that canton the honor of 
being the first to embrace the pure doctrines of Protestantism. His great 
mistake as a Reformer was the attempt to mix politics with religion — to 
reform the State while he purified the Church. 

When the Swiss and the Saxon met at Marburg, they differed upon the 
subject of the Lord's Supper. Luther maintained the doctrine of con- 
substantiation, in which he was a steadfast believer ; Zwingle verged to 
the opposite extreme ; and they parted, no great friends. Two years 
later, in a war between the Reformed and the Romish cantons, Zwingle, 
whose warlike spirit led him to join the ranks of the Zurichers, was killed 
in the battle of Cappel. 

A diet was held at Spires in the spring of 1529, partly to raise forces for 
the Turkish war, and partly to settle, if possible, the religious 
1520 differences of the nation. The Romish party having drawn 
A.D. up a decree in favor of their creed, the Lutherans gave in their 
famous " Protest," from which they were henceforth called 
Protestants. The names of the Elector of Saxony, the Margrave of Bran- 
denburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Liinenburg, the Prince of 
Anhalt, and the deputies of fourteen cities, were affixed to this document. 
Next year, a great assembly of princes met at Augsburg. Luther was 
not there, but Melancthon was ; and to this gentle friend of 
1530 the brave Reformer fell the task of reading the celebrated 
A.D. Confession of the Protestant Faith. In twenty-one articles the 
belief of Protestants was summed up ; the remaining seven 
were devoted to the errors of Rome. The document was written by Me- 
lancthon, but much of the matter was Luther's. 



OF HISTORY. 237 

Although this Confession was condemned by the Diet of Ai..gsburg, the 
determined attitude of the Protestants made the decision of little use. The 
emperor wavered, not willing to estrange so powerful a section of the Ger- 
man nation. The league of Protestants at Smalcald and. Frank- 
fort gave new strength to the cause of truth, and the emperor, 1530 
whose grand object then was to lead all Germany into the field A.D. 
against the Turks, annulled the proceedings of the Diets held at 
Worms and Augsburg. This victory of Protestantism marks, for the time, 
at least, the close of the straggle. 

Luther lived until 1546, writing and teaching at Wittenberg. Every 
year saw the doctrines for which he had so stoutly contended, spreading 
more widely. There was much to vex him in the perils which still beset 
the cause, and in the follies of some of its friends ; but within his little 
home there was peace. While visiting his native town, Eisleben, to recon- 
cile the Counts of Mansfield, he died after a short illness. As he said him- 
self, " The world is weary of me, and I of the world." His work was 
done : he lay down to sleep. Well for us all, if, when the summons comes, 
our work be so bravely and fully done ! He was a blunt, affectionate, jo- 
vial man ; free-spoken sometimes, but always to the point. His tender love 
of his Kate and children, and his noble, manly trust in God, endear to our 
grateful hearts this first and greatest of the Reformers. 

No sketch of the Reformation would be complete without a notice of 
John Calvin. Born in 1509, at Noyon, in Picardy, he received his educa- 
tion chiefly in the schools of Paris, and afterwards attended law-classes at 
Orleans and Bruges. The study of the Bible, and the conversation of two 
friends, first opened his mind to the truths of the Reformed faith, while he 
was a student at Orleans ; and his association at Bruges with the Professor 
of Greek, Melchior Wolmar, deepened his convictions of Romish error. 
To teach religion then became his grand desire. After many vain efforts 
to teach the Reformed doctrines peacefully in France, we find him an exile 
at Basle. There, in 1535, he published the first outline of his great work, 
" The Institutes of the Christian Religion," which was undoubtedly the 
book of the Reformation, and is still a standard text-book in some of our 
schools. After a stay of some time in Italy, and a short visit to France, 
he settled in Geneva, in the summer of 1536. 

Here he became teacher and preacher of theology ; and in conjunction 
with Farel, framed a Confession of Faith for the citizens ; who were, how- 
ever, scarcely yet prepared for the strict, and, as some thought, over-rigid 
discipline which he sought to establish. A hostile party accordingly arose, 
known as the Libertines, whose influence grew strong enough to banish 
Calvin and Farel from the city. 

Strasburg was Calvin's refuge ; and during his three quiet years of liter 



238 GREAT EVENTS 

ary and pastoral labor in that city, he married. His strong interest in the 
Genevans was shown by two remarkable letters, written from Strasburg, to 
strengthen them in the Protestant faith. The completion of the Institutes 
in 1539, too, marks this green resting-place in a troubled life. 

Late in 1540, he received a letter from the Council of Geneva, entreating 
him to return ; and in the autumn of the following year he obeyed the call. 
He lost no time in laying down a code of laws, regulating, not the Church 
only, but the minutest details of every-day life. 

The rest of Calvin's hard-working life was spent in this city, which be- 
came a great centre of the Reformation. Controversy filled up his days, 
for enemies were thick around him. After a long struggle, he expelled 
the Libertines from the city. By many, he is supposed to have given his 
sanction to the burning of the Spaniard Servetus, who denied the doctrine 
of the Trinity — a circumstance which, if true, only affords another melan- 
choly proof that even the greatest and purest spirits cannot always rise 
above the prevailing spirit and rooted prejudices of the age in which they 
live. 

After much suffering from gout and other diseases, this great man died, 
one evening in May, just as the sun was setting. His frame 
1564 was meagre, and rather low-sized ; his sallow face told of hard 
A.D. study and rigorous self-denial. 

He stands out among a noble army, as the great lawgiver and 
organizer of the Reformed Church — the "impersonation of the spirit of 
order in the surging movement of the sixteenth centuiy." 

POPES or THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

A.D. 

Alexander VI 

Pius III 1503 

Julius II 1503 

Leo X 1513 

Adrian VI 1522 

Clement VII 1523 

Paul III i534 

Julius III 1550 

Marcellus II 1555 

Paul IV i555 

Pius IV i559 

Pius V 1566 

Gregory XIII 1572 

SixTus V 1585 

Urban VII 1590 



OF HISTORY. 

Gregory XIV 15 )o 

Innocent IX 1591 

Clement VIII 1592 



239 



CHAPTER II. 

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. 
Central Point: BATTLE OF PAVIA, 1525 A. D. 
Early life of Charles— Becomes King of Spain— Elected Emperor— Troubles in Spain— Wai 
with Francis I. — Imprisonment of Francis— Sack of Rome — The TreatyofCambray— Ana- 
baptist war— The taking of Tunis— Invasion of France— The great design of Charles- 
Close of the French war — Conncil of Trent — Rise of the Jesuits— Maurice of Saxony — The 
interim — The danger at Innspruck — Peace of Passau— Resignation of Charles — His clois- 
ter life— His death and character. 

Charles, the son of Philip the Handsome, Archduke of Austria, and 
the grandson of the Emperor Maximilian, was born at Ghent early in 1500. 
His mother was Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. His 
early life was spent in the Netherlands, where Adrian of Utrecht acted as 
his tutor. But the tastes of the young prince lay rather in warlike exer- 
cises than in books. History and politics were made the groundwork of 
his education. At the age of fifteen he assumed the government of Flan- 
ders, which came to him through his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy. 

The death of Ferdinand, in 1516, placed on his head the brilliant crown 
of Spain, which he held jointly with his mad mother Joanna. The cele- 
brated Cardinal Ximenes, long the faithful minister of the dead king, ruled 
as regent, until Charles, whose Flemish friends, in their jealousy of the 
Spaniards, kept him among them for more than a twelve-month, reached 
the shore of Asturias. There a splendid throng of Spanish nobles wel- 
comed their new king. Ximenes, kept back by illness, wrote to the young 
monarch, advising him to dismiss all strangers from his train, or he would 
mortally offend the haughty grandees. The sensible advice was rejected, 
and the poor old cardinal, stabbed by a cold, cruel letter of reply, laid down 
his gray head to die. 

While at Barcelona, Charles heard that his grandfather Maximilian was 
dead. At once a great struggle for the vacant empire began, between the 
young King of Spain and Francis I. of France. The seven Electors, vyith 
whom the choice lay, fearing that the power of such candidates would be 
dangerous to the liberties of Germany, offered the crown to 
Frederick, Duke of Saxony. But he, refusing it on the 1519 
ground that his hand was too weak to hold the sceptre, when A.D. 
the Turks were showing so threatening a front along the eastern 
borders, advised that Charles, a German by blood and by tongue, should 



24 O GREAT EVENTS 

be elected emperor. So Don Carlos I., whose dominions now embraced 
Austria, the Netherlands, Naples, and Spain, with all its golden posses- 
sions beyond the Atlantic, became Charles V., Emperor of Germany. 

In the following year he was crowned with the diadem of Charlemagne, 
at Aix-la-Chapelle. In sketching the story of his reign, his share in the 
great scenes of the Reformation need not be touched on, since they have 
been noticed in the previous chapter. 

The appointment of his tutor Adrian to be Regent of Spain, and other 
acts of the same kind, kindled a rebellion in the peninsula. Many towns, 
Toledo among the number, took up arms. A " Holy Junta," or associa- 
tion of deputies, was formed ; and Joanna, then enjoying a lucid inter- 
val, was entreated to take the government into her hands. She graciously 
consented ; but, when the glimpse of reason had passed away, she could 
never be got to sign a paper. War began. The troops of the Junta, suc- 
cessful at first, were in the end defeated. They lost the favor of the 
nobles and the clergy. The arrival of Charles, who soon won the hearts 
of the alarmed Spaniards, by granting a free pardon to all, except some 
twenty of the ringleaders, calmed the tumult ; and the removal to Italy of 
Adrian,who had just been made pope, helped to re-establish peace in Spain. 

The grand struggle of the time was between Charles and his brilliant 

rival, Francis of France. Italy, so often the battle-field of Europe, was 

the theatre of war. There, in 1515, Francis had, by a rapid dash over the 

Alps, made himself master of Milan and Lombardy. But, nine years 

later, in one short season, he lost his brave Chevalier Bayard, and every 

fragment of his Italian conquests. And then was fought the great battle 

of Pavia, in which the generals of Charles shattered the French power in 

Italy beyond repair. King Francis, fighting in the front like a gallant young 

soldier, received many wounds, and had his horse killed under 

Feb. 24, him ; but the desertion of his Swiss troops, and an attack upon 

1525 the rear, scattered his brave battalions. He was taken prisoner, 

A.D. and ten thousand of his noblest lay dead upon the bloody field. 

" Madame," wrote he to his mother, " all is lost but honor ! " 

After lying in prison at Madrid for nearly a year, Francis regained his 
freedom by a treaty, in which he agreed to give up to Charles the Duchy 
of Burgundy, to renounce all his pretentions to Italy, and to give as 
hostages his eldest and second sons. Between France and Spain, on the 
waters of the Andaye, the father and sons met — they, bound for a Spanish 
prison — ^he, for the free French shore. Landing, he sprang on his Turkish 
steed, and dashed off for Bayonne, with the joyous words, " I am yet a king." 
The promise about Burgundy was never fulfilled, and the war was at once 
renewed. 

The league, now formed against the empercr by Francis, included the 



OF HISTORY. Zit\ 

pope, upon whom the heavy hand of Charles soon fell. Bourbon, once 
High Constable of France, who had been driven thence by the malice of 
the king's mother, led to Rome the imperial troops, mutinous for want of 
pay. Rushing on the city in the mist of morning, they scaled the walls, 
and, nothing daunted by their leader's death, who was struck down from a 
ladder by a musket-ball, they fought their way into the city. A 
fearful scene of plunder and debauchery ensued. Pope Clement, 1527 
who had shut himself into the Castle of St. Angelo, was soon A.D. 
starved into a surrender. 

Charles tried to calm the indignation which this act roused, by pretend- 
ing deep sorrow for the imprisonment of the pope. His court went into 
mourning, and prayers were offered up for " His Holiness" in the churches 
of Madrid. But all Europe saw through the flimsy veil. Francis I. and 
Henry VIII. of England united against the emperor. The French army 
entered Italy. The fiery Francis challenged his rival to fight a duel, and 
Charles agreed ; but after some hard names had been bandied between the 
monarchs, the matter dropped. Misfortunes then fell thick on Francis. 
One heavy blow was the revolt of Andrew Doria, a famous sailor of Genoa, 
who had been fighting under the French colors. In quick succession there 
followed the ruin of a French army before Naples, by hunger and disease, 
and the loss of Genoa. The threatening attitude of the Turks, and the 
ferment of the Reformation in Germany, inducing Charles to wish for 
peace, two old ladies — the emperor's aunt and the king's mother — met 
quietly in the little border town of Cambray, to talk over the 
matter. There a treaty was agreed to, in terms of which Fran- 1529 
cis was to pay two millions of crowns, to resign Flanders and A.D. 
Artois, and to give up all thoughts of Italy ; while Charles was 
to set free the French princes, and to say no more about the promised Bur- 
gundy. 

In the following year, at Bologna, Charles was crowned Emperor and 
King of Lombardy by the pope, whom he had so hardly used. 

The war of the German peasants, excited by the Anabaptist Munzer, 
has been already noticed. The doings of this sect assumed a more alarm- 
ing phase, when, in 1533, Matthias, a baker, and Boccold, a tailor, seizing 
the Westphalian city of Munster, and changing its name to Mount Zion, 
set up a commonwealth, of which polygamy was the most notable feature. 
Upon the death of Matthias, Boccold assumed the title of king. But after 
a long blockade Munster was taken ; and the tailor-king, hav- 
ing been carried in chains through the cities of Germany, was 1535 
put to death with lingering tortures, where he had held his A.D. 
guilty court. 

Twice Charles led great expeditions to the coast of Africa : one, a bril. 



242 GREAT EVENTS 

liant success, in 1535, the other a wretched failure, in 1541. All the harl>ors 
of Barbary swarmed with Mahometan pirates, of whom the chief was the 
daring Bai-barossa. Sultan Solyman, flattered by the submission of this 
wily corsair, had given him the command of the Ottoman fleet ; and Bar- 
barossa, thus strengthened, had seized the kingdom of Tunis. To dislodge 
him, and thus cripple the Turkish power by sea, was the object of the 
enterprise of Charles. The great fort of Goletta, bristling with three hun- 
dred cannon, was carried with a rush by the troops of the emperor. And 
when the defenders of Tunis were driven back into the city in headlong 
rout, ten thousand Christian slaves, who had knocked off their irons, turned 
the guns of the citadel upon the pirates. Barbarossa fled in dismay ; the 
imperial troops, wild for plunder, burst into the streets, and Tunis was 
filled with riot and blood. Then, having restored the exiled king to his 
throne, Charles recrossed the sea. 

At once the French war was renewed. Savoy was overrun by French 
soldiers, but speedily lost. Charles then invaded Provence with fifty thou- 
sand men. But Montmorency stood firm in his camp at Avignon ; Mar- 
seilles and Aries were besieged in vain ; and after two inglorious months, 
the emperor re-entered Italy a baffled man. Through the mediation of 
Pope Paul III., a truce for ten years was concluded at Nice in 1538. 

Next year we find Charles trusting so far to his rival's honor, as to seek 
permission to travel from Spain to the Netherlands through France, that 
he might punish the revolted citizens of Ghent. The leave being freely 
given, he passed safely through the hostile land, everywhere splendidly re- 
ceived. 

The favorite design of Charles during all his reign, was to roll back the 
tide of Moslem war which threatened Christendom on the east. Solyman 
and his Turks now subdued Hungary. But his constant and wasting wars 
with Francis prevented the emperor from ever realizing this glorious vision. 
The terror of his name, indeed, did something to blunt the Turkish sabre. 
We have already seen him striking a blow at Tunis, on the Barbary shore. 
He aimed another at Algiers late in the autumn of 1541 ; but it was a 
blow that recoiled upon himself ; for storm, and sword, and hunger, and 
plague drove him back to Europe with but a miserable wreck of his splen- 
did force. 

The outbreak of renewed war between Charles and Francis marks the 
year 1542. The worthless truce was cast aside. Francis, forming an al- 
liance with Solyman, raised five great armies ; Charles, with his ally, Henry 
of England, gloated over a fancied partition of France, which seemed to 
float in his future. However, the defeat of the emperor at Cerisoles, where 
he lost ten thousand men, quenched these glowing hopes, and the strife 
was closed by the peace of Crespy in 1544. 



OF HISTORY. 



243 



Toward the close of the following year the nineteenth and last of the 
general councils met at Trent. Nominally convened to settle religious 
differences by fair discussion, it was yet a packed assembly filled with 
Italian bishops, whose overwhelming number enabled the pope to turn the 
course of debate at his will. The Council of Trent, continuing to sit at 
intervals during eighteen years, denounced the doctrines of Luther ; it is 
therefore not surprising that the Protestants have always denied its legality, 
while the Church of Rome still appeals to its decisions as a great standard 
of faith, morals, and discipline. Foremost in all its deliberations were the 
Jesuits — a new order of monks founded by Ignatius Loyola, a meagre 
Spaniard, once a soldier, who, with five others — Francis Xavier among 
them — had sworn one starry night, on the top of Montmartre, to devote 
himself to the cause of his tottering Church. Formally instituted in 1540, 
these roving monks, who, in addition to the three usual vows, took an oath 
of implicit obedience to superiors, made their first great public appearance 
at the Council of Trent ; and ever since, with a wonderful and restless 
energy, in court, and camp, and market-place, and private house, all the 
world over, they have been weaving their dark plots against Protestantism. 

The chief events which marked the remaining years of the Emperor 
Charles, belong to the history of Germany. Francis I. and Luther died 
within a few months of each other ; and Charles, thus freed from his two 
great opponents, resolved to root out the reformed faith at once, by force of 
arms. The Protestants of Germany took the field ; but an ill-timed negotia- 
tion wasted the precious days which should have been spent in active war. 
There was a traitor in their camp — Maurice of Saxony — a deep, smooth- 
faced hypocrite, whose guiding star was self. This man, joining the em- 
peror, invaded Saxony. The league of Smalcald fell to pieces. The Elec- 
tor of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse alone stood sword in hand ; 
but the former was defeated and made prisoner at the battle of Mulhau- 
sen in 1547, and the latter was soon terrified into a surrender. Maurice 
received as the price of his infamy the Electorate of Saxony. 

Great seemed the glory of Charles now — the sword of Francis rusting 
in the grave, the tongue and pen of Luther stilled forever, the great league 
of Protestantism lying in shivers, and its two boldest champions chained 
at his feet. 

It was at this time that the emperor published his celebrated system of 
religious doctrine, called the " Interim," because it professed to settle the 
points in dispute in a temporary way. An unhappy move, which pleased 
neither party — seeming to the one to yield too much, and to the other too 
little. 

Maurice, meanwhile, had been growing tired of the emperor's service. 
His father-in-law, the Landgrave of Hesse, was still a prisoner in spite ol 

9 



244 GREAT EVENTS 

his pleading. And, although a traitor to the Protestant cause, lie had yef 
a lingering feeling that it was good and true. Managing cleverly to hood- 
wink the emperor unril his plans were ripe, and taking care to secure the 
alliance of the French king, Henry II., he appeared suddenly 
1552 at the head of twenty-five thousand men, and issued a mani- 
A.D. festo, setting forth his reasons for the daring step. These were 
three — to secure the Protestant religion, to maintain the Ger- 
man constitution, and to deliver the Landgrave of Hesse from bondage. 

Sweeping rapidly through Upper Germany, he moved upon Innspruck, 
where Charles lay ill of the gout ; and so quick was his approach that the 
emperor, gaining only a few hours' start, was obliged to flee over the Alps, 
carried by torch-light in a litter through the dark and rainy night. Hos- 
tilities ensued ; but the poverty of Charles and his dread of a French war 
forced him to conclude a peace at Passau, by which he granted to Maurice 
the three demands (1552). The Diet of Augsburg meeting three years 
later, confirmed this treaty by a solemn declaration, known as the Peace 
of Religion. 

At the age of fifty-six, Charles resigned the sceptre of Spain and the 

Low Countries to his son Philip, for whom he had been vainly 

1556 trying, during some years, to secure the empire. Addressing 

A.D. the assembled States of his native land at Brussels, he recounted 

what he had done in fulfillment of his public duty, pleaded broken 

health as the cause of his resignation, and touchingly sought the pardon 

of those whom he had neglected or injured. Sailing from the Netherlands 

to Spain, he soon hid his weary head within the monastery of Yuste, in 

Estremadura ; and there, amid dark woods of oak and chestnut, and under 

the shadow of a great mountain chain, he spent two quiet years, devoting 

much time to religious exercises, still taking an interest in public matters, 

but quite content to listen to the hum of the restless world as to the roar 

of a far-off sea. The rich landscapes around him, and his collection of 

pictures, especially eight gems from the glowing pencil of his well-loved 

Titian, were never-failing sources of delight ; but his favorite occupation, 

which he pursued with the help of an Italian engineer, was the making of 

time-pieces and little puppets — amongst which are mentioned soldiers 

dancing-girls, and wooden birds that could fly in and out of the window. 

In the summer of 1558 he took the strange notion of having his own 

funeral rites performed. The chapel was hung with black ; dim wax lights 

burned all around ; a huge scaifolding, draped with black, was 

1558 reared in the centre ; and round it stood the mourners, Charles 

A.D. himself bearing a taper in the sombre ring. As the wailing 

chant arose, a strange chill struck through his blood, and a few 

hours later he was laid in a raging fever upon the bed from which he never 



OF HISTORY. 245 

rose again. The gout, racking him for years, had so wasted his strength 
that in three weeks he breathed his last (21st Septembei-, 1558). 

As a monarch and a statesman, Charles V. possessed shining qualities. 
Few could so skillfully have guided the ever-tangling threads of politics in 
three great realms. Amid discontented Spaniards, surly Flemings, and 
intriguing Italians, with French cannon ever thundering in the west, find 
the flash of Turkish sabres gleaming along his eastern frontier, with all 
Germany agitated by a question that stirred the heart to its lowest depths, 
he yet held his power unbroken, reading the men around him at a glance, 
and shaping out his own course with a rapid and dauntless decision. The 
secret of his success lay chiefly in his untiring industry. His great faults 
were those of an ambitious man. The haunting fear of his life was, that, like 
his mother, he should die mad ; from this, however, he was mercifull> 
spared. 

QERMAN EMPERORS OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 

A.D. 

Albert II 1438 

Interregnum 1439 

Frederick IV 1440 

Maximilian 1 1493 

Charles V 1519 

Ferdinand 1 1558 

Maximilian II 1564 

RoDOLPH II 1576 

Matthias 1612 

Ferdinand II 1619 

Ferdinand III 1637 

Leopold I 1658 

Joseph 1 1705 

Charles VI 1711 

Maria Theresa 1740 

Charles VII 1742 

I Francis I 1745 

Joseph II 1765 

Leopold II — 1790 

Francis II 179a 



246 GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER III. 

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 

Central Point: THE SIEGE OF LEYDEN, 1574 A.D. 

Philip of Spain— Les Gneux— Counts Egmont and Horn— Cruelty of Alva— Rise of the Dut«i 
Navy— Siege and relief of Leyden— Sack of Antwerp— Pacification of Ghent— Don John 
and the Archduke — Union of Utrecht- Murder of William— Independence acknowledged — 
Prosperity of Holland. 

When Charles V. retired to the convent of Yuste, his son, Philip II. of 
Spain, a cold-hearted and bigoted Romanist, the husband of one Queen 
of England, the rejected suitor and beaten foe of her successor, received 
the Netherlands as a part of his dominions. Throughout the well-tilled 
fields of this country, where such cities as Brussels the Noble, Ghent the 
Great, Mechlin the Beautiful, and Antwerp the Rich, arose strong and 
prosperous, the doctrines of the Reformation had spread fast. Philip re- 
solved to root out the heresy. 

Having made his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, regent, he attempted 
to introduce the Inquisition. But the attempt was met with a storm of 
opposition. The Dutch had heard of the Auto da Fe, and 
1566 knew how Mexico had been drenched in blood. " We are no 
A.D. stupid Mexicans," said they. "We will maintain our ancient 
rights." The nobles, walking two and two to the palace, v/ith 
Count de Brederode at their head, presented a petition against the Inqui- 
sition. " Ah ! " said a sneering courtier as he looked upon the procession, 
" it's a heap of beggars." The name stuck to the faction, who were hence- 
worth called Les Gueux — the beggars. The king taking no notice of this 
protest of the nobles, the Dutch rose in revolt with the storming of monas. 
teries and the destruction of many fine pictures. This was what Philip 
wanted. He had now a pretext for executing his bloody schemes. 

The Duke of Alva, whose name is a by-word for bigoted cruelty, entered 

Brussels with twelve thousand Spanish and some German troops, in the 

summer of 1567. The shadows of the coming storm fell deep upon the 

hearts of the Dutch, as the news of Alva's march was buzzed about the 

land. Many fled in fear ; most of them to England. Brederode soon 

died in exile. The greatest man of all, the central figure of a magnificent 

drama — William the Silent, Prince of Orange — unable as yet to organize 

an effective movement of the States against the deceitful 

1568 king, went into Germany to his brother John. The leading 

A.D. nobl'is who remained behind — Counts Egmont and Horn — 

were arrested after three weeks of pretended mildness on the 

part of Alva. About nine months later, they were both beheaded in the 

market-place of Brussels, amid the sobs of the despairing citizens. 



OF HISTORY. 247 

Alva then let loose the full flood of his revengeful bigotry on the wretched 
Netherlanders. The land was poisoned with the stench of eighteen thou- 
sand decaying corpses. But a change came just when it seemed impossi- 
ble to bear such oppression longer. A band of the Water Beggars, under 
the Count of Lumay, who liad sworn never to cut or comb his hair until 
he had revenged his friend Egmont's death, made a dash by sea upon the 
fortified town of Brille, and took it. Everywhere the Dutch, inspired with 
new strength, rose and expelled the Spaniards, who could retain their foot- 
ing only in Middleburg. 

During the war that ensued, Frederick, the son of Alva, starved the 
little garrison of Haerlem into a surrender (1573) ; and then, enraged at 
the gallant defense they had made, butchered them without mercy. When 
the executioners were worn out with their bloody work, he tied the three 
hundred citizens that remained, back to back, and flung them into the sea. 
A repulse at Altmaar, and a great defeat sustained at sea, when the Water 
Beggars, with twenty-four small vessels, beat thirty large Spanish ships, 
taking seven of them, turned the scale completely against Alva. By 
similar successes, and the capture of richly-laden merchantmen, the 
Dutch soon found themselves masters of a fleet of one hundred and fifty 
sail. 

The brutal Alva was then recalled, and Requesens, a milder man, ap- 
pointed in his stead. Still the war went on, with changing fortune. The 
Spanish soldiery, who were badly paid, growing mutinous, were led to the 
siege of Leyden. A circle of sixty -two forts was drawn round 
the devoted city. It was a terrible time, and the cause of 1574: 
Protestantism was clouding fast. Famine pinched the poor A.D. 
wretches within the walls, and without, the Dutch soldiers had 
been scattered. In vain the Water Beggars, whose broad-brimmed hats 
bore a half moon, with the motto, " Better Turkish than Popish," chafed 
on their decks as they cruised along the low shore. All was despair, until 
William the Silent ordered the dikes to be cut, and the sea let in on the 
Spanish works. It was done. The foaming billows rushed over the corn- 
fields. A wind arose, which drove the salt waves into the Spanish trenches, 
while at the same time it bore the boats of the bold Dutch skippers, piled 
up with bread and fish, to the walls of the rescued city. Fifteen hundred 
Spaniards were slain or drowned. The university of Leyden was erected 
as a memorial of this gallant defense and happy deliverance. 

The relief of Leyden was a fatal blow to Spanish power in the Nether- 
lands, although Holland was not yet quite free. The exulting people 
elected William Stadtholder, and Protestantism of the Calvinistic form 
was re-established in the land. Much to the grief of William, who tried 
to repress he spirit of revenge, the Reforming party, having now gained 



2 4 8 GREA T E VENTS 

the up]-/er hand, inflicted very cruel persecution upon the few Romcjiists 
that remained. 

Requesens died suddenly in 1576 ; and his soldiers, thus left without a 
leader, and maddened by want of pay, surprised and sacked Antwerp, 
leaving five thousand citizens dead, and five hundred houses in ashes 
(November 4, 1576). 

At a meeting of the States held about the same time, it was proposed to 
form a union of most of the Netherland provinces, upon the double con- 
dition that religious differences should be arranged, and the Spaniards ex- 
pelled. This, which was accomplished in Novembei", 1576, is known as 
the Pacification of Ghent. 

Don John of Austria, famous for his great victory over the Turks at Le- 
panto, in 1571, then came to represent the King of Spain. There was a 
party among the nobles jealous of the fame of the Silent Prince of Orange, 
and the liberties of the infant republic seemed in fatal peril, when Wil- 
liam, with a wise self-denial which proved him to be a true patriot, refusing 
to take the head of affairs, gave place to the Archduke Matthias, who was 
a German prince and a Romanist. The war continued between Don John 
on the one side, Matthias and Orange on the other. A French duke strove 
amid the clash of parties to seize the government ; but he was driven from 
the land. The leading soldier on the Spanish side was the young Duke 
of Parma, who soon reduced to subjection the southern provinces, in which 
the greatest cities, Ghent especially, were hotbeds of civil strife. 

Fortunately for themselves and the cause of Protestantism, there was 

harmony enough among the northern provinces to make them follow the 

advice of Elizabeth of England, whose heart and whose aid, 

Jan. 22j when she could give it, had been with them through all the 

1579 perilous struggle. The famous Union of Utrecht laid the 

A.D. foundation of the Dutch Republic. Seven provinces — Guel- 

derland, Holland, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Overyssel, and 

Groningen — agreeing to unite their strength as a single state, chose Wil 

liam of Orange to be their Stadtholder. 

Philip's rage was terrific when he heard that these lands, poor, indeed, 
in natural qualities, but trebly rich in the skill and industry of their sturdy 
inhabitants, had broken loose from his realms. Setting a price of twenty- 
five thousand ducats upon William's head, he promised, moreover, to grant 
nobility to any one who should murder this leader of the rebel 
July 17, Dutch. The base bribe .bought a ready hand. A villain named 
1584 Balthasar Gerard, came to Delft seeking an audience of the 
A.D. Stadtholder. He was courteously received, and honored with a 
rich gift, yet his heart never melted. Drawing a pistol, he fired, 
and three balls pierced the body of the Prince. " O God ! have mercy upon 



OF HI STORY. 249 

me, and upon this poor nation," were the last words of this great man, 
whose life, of only fifty-one years, most truly worked out the meaning of 
his motto, " Calm in the midst of storms." The Spanish war was con- 
tinued by his son and successor, Maurice, who ruled the Dutch Republic 
until 1625. 

The independence of the seven united provinces, though really won at 
the Relief of Leyden, and declared by the Union of Utrecht, was not 
formally acknowledged by Spain until 1609, when a truce for twelve years 
was made. 

A sad and striking contrast was soon manifest between the free provinces 
of the north, and those provinces of the south which were still pining in the 
bondage of Spain. In the same year that saw the murder of Orange, the 
Duke of Parma got complete possession of Ghent. There, having first shut 
the schools and stopped the printing-presses, he planted a colony of Jesuits. 
There was no surer way of strangling liberty ; and while free Holland bloom- 
ed like a garden, and the docks of Amsterdam bristled with a forest of masts, 
the cities of the south stood empty, or peopled only with a sluggish few. 

The population of Holland soon grew too great, for thither fled num- 
bers of Calvinist refugees, driven from the Belgic provinces, from France 
and Germany. So thick was the crowd in some places, that many families 
lived in boats. But here the native enterprise found a speedy remedy. 
The Bremstersee was drained ; and the wonderful Water Siaat, or system 
of canals and dykes, was wrought out over all the land. The ships of the 
Water-Beggars, which had done such gallant service in the war of inde- 
pendence, manned with their hardy crews, were ready for sea on more 
peaceful errands ; and before many summers had shone on the young re- 
public, the Dutch flag was flying in every sea, and the merchandise of all 
the world, from the spices of Java and the tea of China to the cod-fish 
and whale oil of North American waters, filled the giant warehouses on 
the banks of the Y. 

RULERS OF HOLLAND. 

A.D. 

William of Nassau, first Stadtholder 1579 

Prince Maurice of Nassau 1587 

Frederick Henry of Orange 1625 

William II. of Orange 1647 

The States suppress the office of Stadtholder 1650 

William III. of Orange 1672 

States in pov-'er again 1702 

William IV. (Office of Stadtholder made hereditary in 

the Ho ise of Orange) 1747 

William V I. of Orange , 1751 



250 GREAT EVENTS 

Netherlands united to French Republic 1795 

William Frederick 1806 

Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland 1806 

Holland again united to France 1810 

William Frederick, Prince of Orange, iirst King of the 

Netherlands 1815 

William II. second king of Holland 1840 

William III. third king 1849 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE HUGUENOTS. 

Central Point : THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, Augnst 24, 1572 A.D. 
The name Huguenot— Henry 11.— Bourbons versus Guises— Francis II.— Massacre of Vassy 
—Battle of Dreux— Murder of Guise — Reverses of tlie Huguenots— Peace of St. Germain— 
St. Bartholomew's Day — Deathbed of Charles IX. — The Catholic League — Henry IV. — 
Struggle with the League— Battle of Ivry- Henry's abjuration— Edict of Nantes— France 
under Henry IV. 

The French Reformation began in the reign of Francis I., to whom, as 
a peace-offering, John Calvin dedicated his " Christian Institutes." Amid 
his ceaseless wars with the Emperor Charles, this knightly monarch did 
not forget to fight the battle of Mother Church. He doomed to the stake 
crowds of Huguenots, as the French Protestants now began to be called, 
probably from a German word, Eignofs, meaning sworn confederates, and 
applied to a party in Geneva.* 

During the reign of Henry II. (1547-1559) the fires of persecution 

continued to blaze, the queen, Catherine de Medici, who was destined 

afterwards to brand her name deeply on a terrible page of French history, 

rejoicing in the glare. This king, holding a Bed of Justice, 

1558 issued an edict to establish the Inquisition in France ; and the 

A.D. students of Paris, who used to gather in the " Pr4 aux Cle7rs," 

now a part of the Faubourg Saint Germain, to sing psalms in 

the still summer twilight, were denounced as guilty of sedition. 

A political element, now beginning to weave itself into the battle 
between the creeds, gave a peculiar bitterness to the strife. The great 
family of Bourbon, descended from Robert, the fifth son of Louis IX., 
were the rivals and foes of the princes of Lorraine, who are known as 

* Other derivations of this word are from Hugon's tower at Tours, where th<» 
Protestants often met ; and from the first wordB of their petitions, " Euc noB r»»» 



OF HISTOR Y. 



251 



the Guises. We therefore do not wonder to find the leaders of these 
great factions ranged on opposite sides in the religious contest. Anthony 
of Bourbon, who was King of Navarre through his wife, though afterward 
a renegade, became at first a leader of the Protestants. His brother 
Louis, Prince of Conde, took the same side. Marshalled against them 
veit the queen, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the 
Nonstable Montmorency. The death of Henry II., from a wound in the 
jye accidentally inflicted at a tournament, saved him from the worse shame 
that haunts the memory of his son (1559). 

Francis II., the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, then becoming king, 
fell so completely into the hands of the Guises, who were the uncles of 
his wife, that the conspiracy of Amboise was formed by Gondii and others, 
to crush the haughty clique. But the attempt was drowned in blood, the 
Prince of Conde narrowly escaping the vengeance of the Guises. The 
death of young Francis, in 1560, left the throne to his brother, Charles IX. 

The queen-mother then became the ruling spirit of France, for she had 
unbounded influence over the mind of Charles, who was a boy of only ten. 
Every day grew darker to the Huguenots. Guise, Montmoi-ency, and 
Saint Andr^, three leading nobles of France, formed a triumvirate to root 
out the so-called heresy. Hope, indeed, seemed to brighten, when the 
v;dict of July, 1561, freeing the Huguenots from the punishment of death, was 
followed by the edict of January, 1562, giving them leave to meet unarmed 
for worship outside of the towns. But the murmurs of the Romish party 
grew deep, and a massacre of Huguenots at Vassy by the followers of 
Guise, acting as the first taste of blood to the tiger, let loose a host of 
butchers upon the unhappy Protestants. Loire and Seine, Garonne and 
Somme ran red with Huguenot blood. 

War then broke out. The Prince of Cond^ headed the Huguenots, and 
not less distinguished in the cause of truth and freedom was Gaspard 
Chatillon, better known as Admiral Coligny. Condd seized Orleans, which 
became the head-quarters of his party, and from this centre the Hugue- 
not influence spread far and wide. Elizabeth of England, receiving Havre 
as a gift, sent them six thousand troops, while the alliance of Spain gave 
weight to their Romish foes. 

The first great battle was fought at Dreux, forty-five miles from Paris. 
For seven hours the strife raged ; and just as the capture 
of the Constable Montmorency seemed to make the victory 1562 
of the Protestants sure, up came the fresh troops of Guise, A.D. 
beat back the exulting Huguenots, and took Cond^ prison- 
er. That night the vanquished prince shared the bed of his captor. 

Orleans was at once besieged by Guise, and the hopes of the Huguenots 
were sinking low, when the assassination of the duke, who was shot in 

9* 



2 52 GREAT EVENTS 

the dusk of the evening from behind a tree by a young Protestant named 
Poltrot, saved the stronghold and broke up the triumvirate. 

It is wonderful what life there is in truth. The defeat of the Protestants 
at Dreux was only the first in a series of similar repulses, suffered during 
the eight following years. And yet the cause still lived ; for every cham- 
pion who bled on the battle-field, or shrivelled up amid blazing fagots, 
tens and hundreds arising with swords as sharp, and hearts as meekly 
brave. The Romanists triumphed in 1567 at St. Denis ; but the death of 
Constable Montmorency, who was shot by a pistol-bullet, cast a gloom 
over their rejoicings. In 1569 the Huguenots were defeated at Jamac, and 
their great leader, Cond^, was slain. Their attempt upon Poictiers, which 
was then the second town in France, was foiled by the valor of the young 
Duke of Guise ; and a month or two later they were beaten at Montcon- 
tour in spite of the bravery of Coligny, who escaped with difficulty, bleed- 
ing from many wounds. The young King of Navarre, a boy of sixteen, 
and the young Prince of Conde were already, under the guardianship of 
Coligny, numbered amid the Huguenot leaders. 

After a winter spent in the south, Coligny, nothing daunted, collected a 

new army, and reinforced by some Geiman troops, was marching 

1570 upon Paris, when a peace was concluded at St. Germain en 

A.D. Laye, in terms most favorable to the Huguenots. They were 

to be pardoned for taking up arms ; their forfeited property 

was to be restored ; they were declared eligible to most public offices ; and 

they were to hold four towns, Rochelle among the number, for two years, 

as security for the fulfillment of the treaty. 

But already dark shadows had begun to fall upon the Protestants of 
France. Five years ago Catherine de Medici had met the infamous Duke 
of Alva at Bayonne, and such a meeting boded no good to the cause of 
the Reformation, either in Flanders or in France. The terms of the 
treaty of St. Germain were too sweet to be sincere. But the favor of 
King Charles seemed to go further still ; for, in order to cement the union 
of the rival parties, he proposed a marriage between the young king of 
Navarre and his own sister Margaret. " Ah ! " said a wary noble of the 
time, " if it takes place at Paris, the wedding favors will be crimson." 

Coligny, Cond^ and the leading Huguenots went to Paris to the 
wedding, which took place on the i8th of August, 1572. Four days later, 
as the admiral was walking slowly on his way from the Louvre, reading 
some papers, he was fired at from a window by a man, Maureval, known as 
the " king's assassin." A ball struck each arm. The king, though secret- 
ly enraged that the murderer had missed his aim, paid Coligny a visit of 
pretended friendship. Meanwhile a horrible plot, of which Catherine de 
Medici was the life and soul, was darkening to its fatal crisis. The wretched. 



OF HISTORY. 253 

irresolute king trembled at the prospect of the fearful crime ; bui neither pity 
nor fear could pierce the granite heart of his mother. At midnight bands of 
armed men mustered according to orders at the Hotel de Villa. A church 
bell rang ; a single pistol-shot was heard ; and the work of blood began. 

It was then two o'clock on Sunday morning — St. Bartholo- 
mew's day — the 24th of August, 1572. The first victim Aug. 24, 
was the gray-haired Coligny, whose lodging was broken 1572 
into by the retainers of Guise. Guise himself, Aumale, and A.D. 
Angouleme stood in the court-yard below ; and when the corpse 
of the old man was flung from the window, they were wet with the spirt- 
ing blood. Shots and screams echoed through the streets, into which the 
defenseless Huguenots fled half-naked ; and by the glare of torches which 
were placed in the windows, bands of Romanists, wearing a white cross in 
their hats, butchered without mercy. The Paris mob went mad with the 
lust of blood ; one wretched man, a goldsmith, boasted of having killed 
four hundred persons with his own hand. The Romish nobles rode about 
in the summer dawn, encouraging the murderers. " Crush the viper 
blood," yelled the savage Guise. " Bleed, bleed," cried Tavannes ; 
" doctors say bleeding is as good in August as in May." During the 
week of the massacre ten thousand were slain in Paris alone ; and, fast as 
the news reached Rouen, Orleans, Lyons, and other cities, similar trage- 
dies were enacted, seventy thousand Huguenots perishing in the provinces. 
The King of Navarre and the Prince of Cond^ escaped only by professing 
to abandon the Protestant faith. At Rome cannon were fired, and a Te 
Deum sung in honor of the great event ; but to the court of Protestant 
Elizabeth the news brought fear, and anger, and deepest gloom. 

Notwithstanding this fearful blow, the Huguenots held out bravely in 
Rochelle, and after a time gained some important concessions. Only 
eighteen months after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX. lay 
dying, at the early age of twenty-five. His soul was frozen with unutter 
able horror, as the pale and bloody spectres of that fearful Sunday morn- 
ing seemed to crowd around his fevered bed. His brother, Henry of 
Anjou, who had lately been crowned King of Poland, then became King 
of France ; but so strong was the desire of the Polish nobles to keep him 
among them, that he was obliged to leave his palace there by stealth. 

The reign of this prince, under the title of Henry III., is marked by 
the establishment of the Catholic League for the extermination 
of the Huguenots. Already the King of Navarre, having 1576 
escaped from custody after three years' imprisonment, and A.D. 
having flung to the winds his forced adherence to the Romish 
creed, was at the head of the Protestants. Cond6 was with him. Wat 
was renewed. The king, who was at first in favor of the League, soon 



2 54 GREAT EVENTS 

formed a party of his own. The desolating war that followed is c&lled 

the War of the Three Henrys, for the Leaguers were under Henry of 

Guise, and the Huguenots under Henry of Navarre. Paris having 

declared for tlje Guises, the king caused the duke and his brother, the 

cardinal, to be assassinated. Then all France rose in flame ; and the 

king had no resource but to throw himself on the help of the Huguenots. 

Aided by Navarre, he undertook the siege of Paris ; but at St. 

1589 Cloud he was stabbed by James Clement, a Dominican 

A.D. monk, who gained admission to the royal quarters. So 

perished the last king of the princely line of Valois. On the 

5th of January in the same year his infamous mother, Catherine de Medici, 

had already died. 

Henry, King of Navarre, who had for twenty years been the acknowl- 
edged head of the Huguenots, then became King Henry IV. of France, 
at the age of thirty-six. He was the first monarch of the great Bourbon 
line, under whose rule France was destined to see days so glorious 
and so disastrous. The death of his mother, in 1572, had left him 
King of Navarre. Two months later, he had married the sister of 
Charles IX. 

His struggle with the League still continued after the crown of France 
became his. Only half of the kingdom at first acknowledged his sway ; 
and his rival, the Duke of Mayenne, was appointed Lieutenant-General 
of France by the Parliament of Paris. In the war of four years which 
ensued, the chief events were the battle of Arques and the still more cele- 
brated fight of Ivry, both resulting in favor of the king. Elizabeth of 
England aided her royal cousin with men, money, and ammunition. 

The battle of Ivry was the crisis of the struggle between the Huguenots 
and the Leaguers. On a plain near the Eure the two armies lay under 
torrents of rain during the night before the conflict. The king had eight 
thousand foot and more than two thousand horse ; Mayenne 
Mar. 14, had twelve thousand foot and four thousand horse. A cannon- 
1590 ade began the battle ; but the cavalry did the real work of the 
A.D. day. Never was the dashing valor of King Henry more con- 
spicuous than on this eventful day. Before the onset, riding out 
in front of his men " all in his armor dressed," with stirring words he had 
bidden them follow the snowy plumes with which his helmet was adorned. 
There was one anxious quarter of an hour, when the dust of a sweeping 
charge hid this guiding star from the straining eyes of the Huguenot 
soldiery ; but when the white gleamed out again, and their king, breath- 
less, bloody, and soiled with battle-dust rode safe out of the melee, a cheer 
arose which struck panic into the army of the League. Mayenne fled 
across the Eure ; and scarcely four thousand of his fine force escaped 



OF HISTORY. 255 

death or capture. Count Egmont, a Spanish ofBcer, was among the 
slain. 

Henry then laid siege to Paris ; but the advance of a Spanish force, 
under the Duke of Parma, obliged him to abandon the undertaking. 
Negotiations began between the king and the members of the League, 
who were gaining no ground in the strife. And then took place that re- 
markable event, which stamps Henry as a worldly-wise politician, sadly at 
the expense of his character as a man of true religious feeling. " The 
perilous leap" — so he himself called it — was taken in 1593, when, acting 
by the advice of his celebrated minister, Rosni, Duke of Sully, and desir- 
ous to end the distractions which had torn France for so many years, he 
abjured the Protestant faith. All the Romanists, except the extreme 
bigots, were overjoyed ; town after town opened its gates to him ; foe 
after foe laid down the sword, until in 1598 he ruled in peace over all 
France. 

Though he had ceased to be a Protestant, he had not ceased to care for 
the cause. Five years after his abjuration, in the face of an opposing 
Parliament, be signed the famous Edict of Nantes, which gave 
freedom of conscience to the Protestants, declared them eligi- Apv. 30, 
ble to all offices, and permitted the public exercise of their 1598 
worship in certain parts of the kingdom. In the following A.D. 
month a treaty between France and Spain was concluded at 
Vervins, much to the advantage of the former nation. Thus Henry 
gained his earnest wish — peace at home and abroad. 

His twelve remaining years were spent in constant efforts to make 
France a land of plenty. " The poorest peasant in my realm," said he, 
" shall eat meat every day in the week, and have a fowl for the pot on 
Sunday." He gave to Sully the task of arranging the money matters of 
thS State, which had fallen into such a miserable condition, that only one- 
fifth of the taxes exacted from the people reached the royal treasury. The 
remaining four-fifths stuck to the fingers of the robbers, worse than the 
publicans of old, who were entrusted with the collection. But by Sully's 
skill and the strict economy of the court, where the plain gray cloth of 
the king's dress and the simple dishes of his table left the nobles no ex- 
cuse for luxury, debts to the amount of one hundred and thirty-five millions 
of livres were paid off ; the king's revenue was increased by four millions ; 
and thirty-five millions gathei-ed in the treasury ; and all this, while the 
mason's chisel and the hammer of the ship-builder were ringing and clat- 
tering without rest in every town and dock-yard. New and splendid 
buildings decked the streets of Paris. Churches, bridges, hospitals, forts, 
and ships grew up everywhere. Schools were endowed, libraries were 
filled, and men of learning were rewarded. Grotius, Scaliger, Casaubon, 



356 GREAT EVENTS 

and De Thou were among those in whose society the king often enjoyed 
his leisure. 

So reigned Henri Quatre, of all monarchs still the dearest to the French 

heart, until the dagger of Ravaillac, a mad Jesuit, slew him 

May 14, one day while his carriage was blocked up in a narrow street. 

1610 His son Louis, the eldest of three children by Maiy de 

A.D. Medici, his second wife, succeeded him with the title of Louis 

XIIL 

FRENCH KINGS OF TEE HOnSE OF VALOIS. 

• A.D. 

Philip VI. (de Valois) 1328 

John II. (the Good) 1350 

Charles V. (the Wise) 1364 

Charles VI. (the Beloved) 1380 

Charles VII. (the Victorious) 1422 

Louis XI 1461 

Charles VIII. (the Affable) 1483 

Louis XII 1498 

Francis 1 1515 

Henry II 1547 

Francis II. (husband of Mary Stuart) 1559 

Charles IX 1560 

Henry III. (King of Poland) 1574-S9 



CHAPTER V. 

cardinal RICHELIEU. 

Central Point: THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF LA ROCHELLE, 1628 A.D. 
Regency of Mary de Medici— Her favorite Concini—Misgovernment— Louis Xm. — His favo 
ite De Luynes — Rise of Richelieu — His three aims — He tames the nobles— Curbs the Par- 
liament — Revival of Huguenot power— Buckingham at Rhe— Taking of Rochelle — 
Huguenots subdued- Glory of Richelieu— His death— His character— Death of Louis XIIL 

A miserable chaos followed the wise rule of Henri Quatre of France. 
Louis XIIL, being only nine years of age, his mother, Mary de Medici, 
was made regent ; and under her weak government a total change took 
place. Sully, whose wisdom was set at nought, resigned, and left the 
court. Concini, an Italian, and his wife, having gained ascendency over 
Mary's mind, guided the affairs of the State as they pleased. A close 
alliance was formed with the pope and the court of Madrid. The nobles, 
with Conde at their head, rose in arms, enraged at the favor shown tc 
foreigners. All over the land the laws were utterly despised. 



OF HISTORY. 257 

But Louis was growing up ; and in 1617 Concini wis arrested and 
shot, and soon after his wife was beheaded. The queen-regent was 
driven into exile at Blois, where she lived, until, two years later, she was 
released by the rebellious nobles under D'Epernon. These steps were 
taken by the advice of Albert de Luynes. the falconer of young Louis, 
who, finding means to slip into the dead favorite's place, rose to be Con- 
stable of France. This new minion was more bitterly hated by the nobles 
than his predecessor had ever been. 

Out of this confusion and crime there arose one who, with all his faults, 
ranks first man of his age. Born of noble parents at Paris in 1585, and 
educated at the College of Navarre, young Armand Jean Du Plessis, 
though at first intended for a soldier, was consecrated Bishop of Lu9on in 
his elder brother's place, at the early age of twenty-two. Chosen in 1614 
to represent the clergy of Poitou in the assembly of the States General, 
this clever young priest created so great a sensation by a speech which he 
delivered before the king, that the queen-regent made him her almoner. 
This was the turning-point in his career. Thrown henceforward into the 
wild turmoil of restless court intrigue, with cool head and resolute heart 
lie won step after step in the perilous struggle. While the star of Con- 
cini was in the ascendant, he was made Secretary of State. In 1622 he 
wore for the first time the red hat of a cardinal ; and, two years later, the 
influence of Mary de Medici having gained for him a seat in the Council, 
his eloquence and deep political wisdom raised him to the proud position 
of first Minister of France. Such was the rise of the great and ruthless 
Cardinal Richelieu, of whom Montesquieu says: " He made his master 
the second man in the monarchy of France, but the first in Europe ; he 
degraded the king, but he made the reign illustrious." 

The writer just quoted gives the essence of the great French statesman's 
policy in a few striking words : " He humbled the nobility, the Hugue- 
nots, and the house of Austria ; but he also encouraged literature and the 
arts, and promoted commerce, which had been ruined by two centuries of 
civil war. He freed France from a state of anarchy, but he established in 
its place a pure despotism." The first two of Richelieu's three great 
achievements claim our notice now. His successful schemes against the 
house of Austria will, in the next chapter, appear as part of the story of 
the Thirty Years War. 

Bitterest of Richelieu's political foes were the restless Mary de Medici 
and her son, Gaston d'Orleans, who could not tamely see their influence 
over the king's mind swept away by the subtle cardinal. But so it was — 
let them bear it how they might — and so it continued to be. Their hold 
upon the king was loosened for ever ; and, spell-bound by the genius of 
his minister, whom he never really liked, Louis saw with no regret his 



258 GREAT EVENTS 

mother and his brother Gaston banished from the realm. In vain Gaston 
plotting against his foe, called his friends to arms. The Dukes of Guise, 
Soubise, and Vendome were forced to flee into exile. Marshal Bassom. 
pierre was thrown into the Bastile. Marillac, Montmorency, Cinq-Mars, 
De Thou, and many others were put to death. Not without fierce resist- 
ance did those terrible blows fall ; but the unerring craft of the priestly 
statesman was too much for the nobles — many, and rich, and unscrupu- 
lously wicked though they were. Plot after plot sprang up ; but the iron 
hand of the cardinal calmly, yet very mercilessly, struck them all down. 
The parliament too, and the Court of Aids, by which the money-edicts 
were registered, felt the power of the haughty minister heavily ; many of 
the members being suspended and banished, because they refused to carry 
out his views. Thus Richelieu gained his first grand aim. Perhaps the 
secret of his success lay in the fact that the French people made no move 
in aid of the nobles or the parliament. 

The second aim of his domestic policy was the humiliation of the 
Huguenots, who, under the protecting shadow of the Edict of Nantes, 
were beginning to be once more formidable. The spirit of freedom in 
religious matters, for which this section of the people had been struggling 
so bravely for nearly a century, could not but influence their political opin- 
ions, and make them dangerous enemies of despotism. Now, as the es- 
tablishment of a despotism in France was the great end of Richelieu's 
policy, these Huguenots, for whose religious opinions the cold and worldly 
statesman seems to have cared not a whit, must either bend or break be- 
fore him. Bend they would not ; so, to break their power, he planned 
the siege of La Rochelle, a seaport on the western coast, which ever since 
1557 had been their great stronghold and asylum. 

The British court, whose councils were then ruled by that wicked fop, 
Buckingham, sent aid to the Huguenots. The duke sailed with a large 
force to La Rochelle in July, 1627 ; but the citizens, shutting their gates, 
refused to give entrance to allies of whom they were not sure. Rhe and 
Oleron lie out in the sea opposite Rochelle. Instead of seizing the latter, 
which would have been an easy capture, he attacked the former, although 
it was studded with strong stone forts. Then followed a series of misera- 
ble blunders. A small fort guarded the harbor, yet he left it behind him 
untaken ; he allowed French ships to break through his fleet with food 
for the garrison of St. Martin ; he lost week after week doing nothing ; 
and before any breach was made he sent his men to storm the rock-built 
citadel of the town. They were, of course, beaten back, and had to fight 
their way to the ships through a French army under Schomberg. Half 
of the English troops were lost in this ill-fated expedition, and the rest 
went home with hanging heads 



OF HIST'ORY. 



259 



Then Richelieu, exulting in the defeat of the English, on v/hose aid the 
Rochellers had mainly relied, went with King Louis XIII. to the camp of 
the French army, which had already begun to besiege this " proud city of 
the waters.'" The cardinal, beneath whose priestly robe a soldier's heart 
was ever burning, threw himself with all his energy into the working of 
the siege. The Dukes of Soubise and Rohan, now the leaders of the 
Huguenot party, were not within the walls ; but the mayor, Guiton, di 
rected the defense. The king, growing weary, soon went back to Paris. 
The cardinal stayed behind. Finding that his greatest efforts by land 
could not take the city so long as the sea was open to the garrison, he 
tried to shut up the harbor, at first with stakes and then with a boom. 
Both plans failed, but his resources were not yet exhausted. 

Remembering how Alexander the Great had taken Tyre, he began to build 
up the entrance of the gulf. The Huguenots at first laughed loud 
when they saw his soldiers, all turned engineers for the nonce, 1628 
tumbling the rocks into the sea for the foundation of the A.D. 
mole ; but when the structure topped the water and began to 
grow out into the deep, very blank they looked. Still the masonry in- 
creased, until a dark mass of cemented rocks half a mile long, closing in 
the harbor, completed the circle of blockade. Earl Lindesay came with 
ships from England, but could do nothing to aid the besieged. Famine 
ground them with its slow and terrible pain, until they had no resource 
left but to yield up to the triumphant Richelieu the last hope of the 
Huguenots. The siege had lasted more than twelve months. Of fifteen 
thousand who had begun the defense, there were then remaining only 
four thousand wasted spectres. 

But the work was not yet done. There were towns in France where 
Protestants still stood armed within stone walls. The Duke of Rohan 
held out in Languedoc, until the active cardinal taught him that to con- 
tinue the struggle was a useless waste of strength. Then began negotia- 
tions, which ended in the destruction of the political power held by the 
Huguenots, but left them still free to worship God in their own way, ac- 
cording to the tei-ms of the Edict of Nantes. 

So for eighteen years this great minister worked out his schemes of 
foreign and domestic policy — his strong will triumphant in them all. He 
left the stamp of his excelling genius, not upon France alone, but on all 
Europe. In every court his name was spoken with respect. The French 
Academy and the Palais Royal, then called Palais Cardinal, remain as 
monuments of his wisdom and his taste. His right-hand man, to whom 
was intrusted the management of his deepest political intrigues, was 
Father Joseph, a Capuchin friar, who held the office of almoner to his 
Eminence. 



26o GREAT EVENTS 

In the last month of 1642 the cardinal died in his palace at Paris, at 

the age of fifty-eight, almost with his last breath recommending to the 
king the Italian, Mazarin, as his successor. 

The good of France may have been, as we are told it was, this priest's 
ruling passion ; but certain it is, that while he worked for France, he nev- 
er for a moment forgot Richelieu. That his genius as a statesman was 
magnificent is beyond question. The very grandeur of his success lies in 
the fact that he could reconcile two aims seemingly opposite — ^his own 
glory and his country's good — which have often clashed in meaner hands. 
His vanity led him to think himself a "-universal genius. Not content to 
be known as a statesman of surpassing brilliance, and a respectable writer 
of sermons and despatches, he aimed at the fame of a poet and a wit, and 
wrote some very middling plays. He seems to have had a passion for 
work. He never swerved from the end he had in view. Ciafty, pitiless 
and cold, he crushed rudely down the gentler feelings of our human 
nature ; and woe to the man or woman who dared to cross his path as he 
climbed the steeps of power. 

The king, Louis XIII., who had been a mere puppet in the hands of his 
great minister, died five months later, leaving a son, Louis, who was then 
only four years old. The queen-mother, Anne of Austria, assumed the 
government as regent, with Mazarin for her prime minister. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE THIRTY YEARs' WAR. 

Central Point: THE BATTLE OF LUTZEN, 1632, A.D. 
Battle of the Reformation— Ferdinand, King of Bohemia.— Frederic elected king — The Union 
and the League — ^Bohemia invaded— Count Mansfeldt—Wallenstein— Defeats Christian 
IV.— Fails at Stralsund— His dismissal— His life at Prague— Gustavus Adolphus- Lands 
at Rugen — Sack of Magdeburg — Battle of Leipsic— Snstavus on the Rhine— Death of 
Tilly— Wallenstein recalled— Battle of Lutzen—Oxenstiern— France in the field— Peace of 
Westphalia— Wretched state of Germany. 

Charles V. was succeeded in the empire of Germany by his brother 
Ferdinand, after whom reigned in succession Maximilian II., Rodolph II., 
and Matthias. 

Ever since the Reformation Europe had been split into two parties — 
Protestants and Romanists — and the conflict, at first waged only with 
tongue and pen, had in later days been often maintained with the cannon 
and the sword. Early in the seventeenth century, when Matthias had 
held the imperial throne for six years, the last grand struggle began — the 



OF HISTORY. 261 

great Thirty Years' War, which enlisted on one side or the other all the 
chief powers in Europe. 

The war opened on a small scale in a contest for the throne of Bohemia, 
to which the Emperor Matthias had managed to raise his cousin Ferdi- 
nand, Duke of Styria. This man, who was a bitter enemy of Protestant- 
ism, was looked on with alarm and dislike by a great mass of 
the people of that land, which had cradled John Huss and 1618 
Jerome of Prague. And good cause the Bohemians soon found A.D. 
for their alarm. Putting into practice that craft which he had 
learned in the schools of the Jesuits, he rested not until, in town after 
town of the whole country, the Protestant service was- repressed. This 
was not to be tamely borne. The Bohemian Protestants, rising in arms, 
marched to the very walls of Vienna. 

When Matthias died, in 1619, Ferdinand was elected emperor. But 
almost in the same hour he heard that the Bohemians, disgusted with the 
spirit of his entire government, and specially enraged at a secret family 
compact, by which he had bequeathed their crown to Spain if he dieil 
without male heirs, had with prayers and many tears chosen for their king 
the Elector Palatine, a leader among the Protestants of Germany. So 
the struggle for a crown between Protestant Frederic and Romish Ferdi 
nand was the outbreak of a wider war, of which the first year's fighting had 
been confined within the curve of the Bohemian mountains and the 
Danube. 

Already there existed in Europe two great antagonistic confederacies — 
the Evangelical Union of Protestants, and the Catholic League, which 
was supported by the Romish powers. The League naturally sided with 
Ferdinand, and the Union with Frederic. The former depended chiefly 
on Spain ; the latter looked for aid to England, the Dutch Republic, and 
all the Protestant princes of Germany. 

The march of fifty thousand Romanist troops under Maximilian, Duke of 
Bavaria, into the Bohemian territory, took Frederic somewhat by surprise. 
A battle was fought at the White Mountain, near Prague, in which the 
elector was defeated and forced to flee by night from the city, 
leaving his crown behind him. Twenty-seven of the leading 1620 
Protestants were sent to the scaff"old, and thousands were A.D. 
driven into exile. Ferdinand tore to pieces with his own hand 
the " letter of majesty," a document by which Rodolph IL had been forced 
to grant a certain degree of religious freedom to the Bohemians. The 
beaten elector and would-be king fled to Brandenburg and thence to 
Holland. 

The electors of Brandenburg and Saxony both stood aloof from their 
fellow-elector — the one afraid of Austria, the other cautious, selfish, and 



a 62 GREAT EVENTS 

watchful of his own position. But there was a Bohemian soldier, Count 
Mansfeldt, who still dared to lift the sword against the generals of Fer- 
dinand. Frederic came back with reviving hopes, for Mansfeldt was at 
the head of twenty thousand men. The Bavarian general, Tilly, proving 
more than a match for the elector and his friends, drove him to take 
refuge once more in Holland. 

The kings of northern Europe were then greater men than are their 
descendants of the present day. Christian IV. of Denmark and Gustavus 
Adolphus of Sweden, who were both powerful princes, contended for the 
honor of leading the Protestant armies. The Swede was the Protestant 
hero of this great war ; but the time had not yet come for his appearance 
on the changeful scene. The King of Denmark, nearer the battle-ground, 
and anxious to be beforehand with his royal neighbor and rival, took the 
field with a great army, as the leader of the Union aaid the champion of 
the Protestant cause. 

Meanwhile, the hero of the other side had arisen. When the Emperor 
Ferdinand was at his wit's end for men and money to meet this new con- 
federacy, Albert, Count Wallenstein, a rich and distinguished Bohemian 
officer, proposed to raise an army at his own expense, saying that when 
once in the field they could easily support and pay themselves by plunder. 
The emperor accepted the proposal, and in a short time Wallenstein, at the 
head of a motley force of thirty thousand men, moved to the Elbe. The 
Danish war did not then last long. Christian IV. was defeated by Tilly at 
Lutter in Hanover ; and in the following year Wallenstein, whose 

1626 rapid marches with a gigantic host, now swelled to one hundred 
A.D. thousand men, are the wonder of historians, drove him out of 
Germany, and, seizing all the peninsula of Denmark except one 
fort, shut him up in his islands. We are told that the great freebooter, 
raging that he had no ships to cross the Belt, bombarded the sea with 
red-hot shot — a pitiful caricature of Xerxes' folly at the Hellespont. For 
his great service Wallenstein was rewarded with the duchies of Mecklen- 
burg, and he also assumed the title of Generalissimo of the Emperor by 
land and sea. 

The next step in his plan of action was to secure the command of the 

Baltic ; and for this purpose he laid siege to Stralsund, a strong fort on 

the nar^w strait which separates the island of Rugen from the mainland. 

His want of ships prevented him from blocking up the harbor, so that, 

when the Danish garrison was weakened by repeated assaults 

1629 on the land side, reinforcements from Sweden found a ready 

A.D, entrance by sea, and defended the town until Wallenstein had 

to abandon the hopeless siege. This repulse led the emperor 

to treat with Christian, who, by the inglorious peace of Lubeck, agreed 

to lay down the sword he had so feebly wielded. 



OF HISTORY. 263 

It has been already said that the great aim of Richelieu's foreign policy 
was the humiliation of the House of Austria. In 1629 he found himself • 
free for the accomplishment of this design, since the two leading objects 
of his domestic government had been attained. He had broken the 
power of the Huguenots at Rochelle, and he had tamed with iron hand 
the haughty noblesse of France. Already he had been deep in political 
intrigues against Ferdinand, and now, by the aid of his trusty Father 
Joseph, he gave a new turn to the war, Wallenstein, who had wrung 
million after million of dollars from the indignant Germans, was hated 
by them all for his arrogance and extortion. Foremost among a clamor- 
ous, complaining crowd was Maximilian of Bavaria, who found himself 
quite thrown into the shade by the victorious brigand. The emissary of 
Richelieu, making a handle of the emperor's desire to please the German 
princes, artfully persuaded him to dismiss Wallenstein. Obeying without 
a murmur, though he was then at the head of one hundred thousand troops 
flushed with victory, the Bohemian soldier retired to Prague, where he lived 
with more than royal magnificence. 

Schiller gives us a strange picture of his darling hero during this time 
of eclipse. A tall, thin, yellow-faced man, with short red hair, small 
glittering eyes, and a dark, forbidding brow, sat silent within a palace 
of silent splendor. The pen seldom left his fingers, for his dispatches 
still flew over all Europe. The surrounding streets were blocked up, 
lest the noise of carriage-wheels should j^each his ear. There, still and 
unsmiling, he waited for the time which the golden stars had promised 
— he was, like most men of his time, a devout believer in astrology — ■ 
when he should be once more called to play a great part in history. 

The crafty Richelieu, having thus weakened the cause of Ferdinand 
rested not until he saw the Protestant armies marshalled by the greatest 
soldier of the age, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who had in- 
deed been long desirous of measuring his strength with the emperor. 
There is, in all the range of history, no character finer than that of 
Gustavus, the hero of this war. Brave himself, he kindled like fire of 
courage in his soldiers' hearts ; religious himself, he took care that, morn- 
ing and evening, every regiment gathered round its chaplain in a ring for 
prayer ; severe upon sin, yet ever tempering justice with mercy, he was at 
once loved and feared by his subjects and his soldiers. 

On the 20th of May, 1630, Gustavus, having assembled the States at 
Stockholm, took in his arms his little Christina, only four years 
old,- and showed her to his people as their future sovereign. June 24, 
His farewell was uttered with broken voice, and heard with 1630 
many tears. A month later, he landed on the island of Rugenin A.D. 
Pomerania with fifteen thousand men. At first all that was done 



264 , GREAT EVENTS 

in Vienna was to sneer at the Snow King, who, as the wits said, would 
surely melt as he marched southward. But when this same Snow 
King, seizing Stettin, overran all Pomerania, it was time to act. Tilly 
was made General-in-chief of the Austrian armies. Still the career of the 
victorious Swedes went on. 

Strengthened by an alliance with France, they took Frankfort, and all 
that Tilly could do in revenge was to wreak his rage upon the helpless 
population of Magdeburg. This town, which was then a great Protest- 
ant stronghold, stands on the Elbe. Enraged at the' gallant defense of 
the place, this ugly, big-whiskered dwarf, whose green doublet and little 
cocked hat, with a red feather hanging down his back, must have made him 
cut a rather remarkable figure, let slip his dogs of war upon the city, 
which he took by storm, before the Swedes could come to its relief. The 
horrors of the sack of Magdeburg are unspeakable. Beautiful girls and 
wrinkled grand-dames, strong men and helpless infants wei-e shot and 
stabbed and thi'own for amusement into the flames of the burning streets. 
The pavement was slippery with the blood of thirty thousand dead. 

Gustavus Adolphus, forcing the selfish Elector of Saxony to join him, 

marched upon Leipsic, which had opened its gates to Tilly ; and then 

there was a great battle, which secured the freedom of Germany. Tilly, 

without much difficulty, routed the Saxons, who fought apart from the 

Swedes. Seven times Pappenheim, the leader of the Austrian cavalry, 

dashed with his heavy cuirassiers upon the lines of Swedish 

Sept. 7, blue-coats ; but every time the sweeping wave recoiled in bro« 

1631 ken foam. Having thus repulsed Pappenheim, the royal Swede 

A.D. attacked the troops of Tilly, who had broken the Saxon wing, and 

seizing the heights where their cannon were planted, he turned 

their own guns upon them. This decided the day. Tilly fled, bleeding 

and defeated ; and Gustavus knelt among the slain and wounded to thank 

God for his victory. Seven thousand of the Austrian army lay dead. 

Their camp, all their cannon, and more than a hundred colors fell into 

the hands of the victors. 

Gustavus, then penetrating central Germany, took Frankfort on his way, 
and crossed the Rhine to besiege Metz. The Spanish troops, who held this 
town, surrendered on the fourth day. The Swedish king thus gained the 
command of the Rhine, much to the alarm of Louis XIII., and even of 
Richelieu, who thought that the royal victor would surely push on to join 
the Huguenots, and overturn the Romish faith in France. But soon, 
turning southeast, Gustavus pressed on to the Lech, a tributary of the 
Danube. Tilly, having bi'oken down all the bridges, defended the pas- 
sage of the stream until he was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball, which 
shattered his leg. Then, breaking up his camp, he retreated to die. The 



OF HISTORY. 265 

Swedes, at once over-running Bavaria, entered Munich in tiiunipli. Al- 
ready their Saxon allies were masters of Prague. 

Ferdinand had then no resource but to recall Wallenstein, who, when 
he heard of these brilliant victories won by Gustavus, knew with secret 
joy that his star was rising once more. Coming forth from his retreat, by the 
magic of his name and his splendid promises he raised in three months a fine 
force of forty thousand men. But of these he would accept the command 
only on condition that he should hold unlimited power over all the armies 
of Austria and Spain, and that no commission or pension should be grant- 
ed by Ferdinand without his approval. To these demands, insolent and 
imperious though they were, the distressed emperor was forced to yield. 

Wallenstein took the field and drove the Saxons out of Bohemia. Then 
uniting his forces with those of the Elector Maximilian, he found himself 
at the head of sixty thousand veteran soldiers — an army much larger than 
that marching under the banners of Gustavus. The Swede shut himself up in 
Nuremberg. There for eleven weeks the two armies lay in strongly forti- 
fied camps, watching each other, and wasting away with hunger and dis- 
ease. In vain Gustavus offered battle ; and on one occasion he made a 
furious attack upon the camp of Wallenstein, which, however, was re- 
pulsed. At last, weary of doing nothing, both armies broke up their 
camps, to meet soon upon a memorable battle-field. 

Wallenstein moved towards Dresden. Gustavus followed his march 
with rapid steps. On a plain near Lutzen, a village twelve miles south- 
west of Leipsic, the imperial general awaited his royal foe. A fog delayed 
the attack until eleven o'clock. Gustavus M'ent to battle with 
the music of Luther's noble hymn on his lips. The Swedish Nov. 6, 
infantry took a battery whose guns had galled them severely ; 1632 
but the flying imperialists, rallied by the stern voice of Wal- a.d. 
lenstcin, turned and drove them back in confusion. Gustavus, 
who had been victo'rious on the right, galloping like lightning to their 
aid, rode too near the enemy's lines. A bullet broke his arm, another 
pierced his back — he fell, riddled with balls, and his riderless horse, drip- 
ping with blood, carried the sad news over the field. 

The Swedes, roused to fury, grew careless of danger or death. In spite 
of the cool daring of Wallenstein, whose cloak was torn with many bul- 
lets, and the dashing valor of Pappenheim, who was shot to the heart at 
the head of his dragoons, the troops of the emperor gave way and fled. It 
was the " crowning mercy " of the Protestant cause ; but there was no joy 
in that victory, for Gustavus Adolphus was dead. 

To quote the eloquent words of Schiller — " With the fall of their great 
leader, it is true, there was reason to apprehend the ruin of his party j 
but to tliat Power which governs the world the loss of no single man can 



266 GREAT EVENTS 

be irreparable. Two great statesmen, Oxenstiern in Germany, and Rich- 
elieu in France, took the guidance of the helm of war as it dropped from 
his hands ; destiny pursued its relentless course over his tomb, and the 
flame of war blazed for sixteen years longer over the ashes of the depart- 
ed hero." 

But with the death of Gustavus nearly all interest fades from the story 
of the war. At once Oxenstiern, the chancellor and dear friend of the 
dead king, being then in Germany, hastened to the camp, and was soon 
chosen head of the Protestant confederacy by an assembly of princes 
meeting at Heilbronn. The Swedes and Germans still kept the field. 
Ratisbon was taken by the Protestants ; but the war degenerated into a suc- 
cession of skirmishes, and pitched battles became very rare. 

Wallenstein, entering into secret correspondence with the Germans, 
grew inactive, was deserted by his army, and in February, 1634, being then 
fifty years of age, was assassinated in the castle of Eger. The murderers 
were richly rewarded by the emperor. 

When the Swedes, who were now fighting, not for the empire of Ger- 
many, but for their very existence, suffered a severe defeat at Nordlingen 
in Suabia (August 1634), Oxenstiern, unable to get money or aid of any 
sort from the German States, threw his cause upon the compassion of 
France. Richelieu, whom we have already beheld working behind the 
scenes, and whose covetous eye had long been fixed on Alsace, as a means 
of extending the French frontier to the Rhine, gladly obeyed the sum- 
mons. Two fleets were fitted out, and six French armies took the field. 
In aid of the Protestants the cardinal undertook to cripple the power of 
Spain, whose alliance formed the main prop of the emperor's cause. In 
the Netherlands, in Italy, and in the Valteline his soldiers fought the 
Spaniards ; and on the Rhine, siding with the Swedes and Germans, they 
met the troops of the emperor, 

Ferdinand died in 1637, but the war kindled by Ms tyranny still deso- 
lated Europe. Many gallant leaders rose to fill the place of Gustavus ; 
and of these perhaps the best was Bernard of Weimar, who died of 
plague in 1639, at Neuburg on the Rhine. Banner and Torstenson, who 
was once the page of Gustavus, led the Swedish armies towards the close 
of the war. After the death of Richelieu the French sustained two sig- 
nal defeats — in 1643 at Diittlingen, and in 1644 at Friburg. 

The peace of Westphalia, signed at Munster, closed this eventful war. 

The leading terms of this celebrated treaty, which is looked 

1648 upon as having laid the groundwork of our modern Europe, 

A.D. were — i. That France should retain Metz, Toul, Verdun, and 

the whole of Alsace except Strasburg and a few other cities ; 

receiving, instead of these, two fortresses — Breisach and Philippsburg, 



OF HISTORY. 267 

which were regarded as the keys of upper Germany. 2. That Holland 
should be a free state, independent alike of Spain and of the Empire. 
3. That the Swiss Cantons should be free. 4. That Sweden, receiving 
Stralsund, Wismar, and other important posts on the Baltic, should also be 
paid five millions of dollars, as indemnification for the expenses of the 
war. 

Thus Germany lost forever the free navigation of the Rhine, and many 
of her most flourishing provinces. The glorious old empire dwindled away 
to a mere shadow of its former greatness. The leading princes soon made 
themselves wholly independent ; and, if the petty states still clung to 
their emperor, it was only that he might shelter them from the inroads of 
their more powerful neighbors. The social condition of Germany after 
the war was utterly wretched. Scarcely one-third of her old population 
crouched in the poverty-stricken land, whence art and science seemed to 
have fled forever, where heaps of ashes marked the site of once busy towns, 
and where sandy deserts, stretching for leagues, filled the place of golden 
corn-fields. Even the sturdy German tongue was changed ; a host of 
French, Spanish, and Italian words had invaded and held possession of 
the land ; and a mongrel speech, formed of foreign words tipped with Ger- 
man endings, became the miserable fashion of the day. 

SWEDISH SOVEREIGNS AFTER THE UNION OF CALMAR. 

A.D. 

Margaret and Eric XIII 1397 

Eric alone 1412 

Christopher III 1441 

Charles VIII. (Canuteson) 1448 

Interregnum 1470 

John II. (I. of Denmark) 1483 

Interregnum 1502 

Christian II. of Denmark (Nero of the North) 1520 

GusTAVUS Vasa (frees Sweden from Danish yoke) 1523 

Eric XIV 1560 

John III 1568 

SiGiSMUND (King of Poland) 1592 

Charles IX 1604 

GusTAvus Adolphus 1611 

Interregnum 1^632 

Christina 1633 

10 



268 GREAT EVENTS 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE IN GERMANY DURING THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. 

Jesnits and Capuchins— Reformed clergy— Coronation splendors — Courts of law— Torture 

and punishment — Soldiers and arms— The citizens — Their amusements— Their houses— 

The peasantry— Their taxes— The universities— Rage for alchemy— Witchcraft— Poets and 

poetry— Other arts. 

Immediately after the Reformation, Rome strove with all her might 
to regain her lost ground and prop her tottering Church. Foremost in 
the counter-work were the Jesuits and the Capuchins. The latter, an off- 
shoot from the old Franciscan order, took their name from the fact that 
they seceded from the original brotherhood, because they maintained that 
St. Francis wore a pointed hood or capuchin. These two orders divided 
the land between them. 

The Jesuits haunted the cities and towns ; the Capuchins, by their jocu- 
lar sermons, strove to draw the country folk to their services ; and both 
drove a profitable trade in amulets and little pictures of the Virgin and 
the saints. The wily Jesuits, studying medicine and practising as physi- 
cians, gained a power over life of which they made terrible use ; for their 
knowledge of poisonous herbs and minerals often served them at a pinch, 
when they desired secretly and safely to get rid of some active foe. Some 
laymen, too, were members of the order ; nor were these, who were called 
short-robed Jesuits, the least useful of the brethren. With deep fore- 
sight the Jesuits strove to get the education of the young into their hands. 
In Germany, however, their influence was feebler than in southern Eu- 
rope. 

The poisonous creeping-plant, springing first in Spanish soil, never throve 
on the heaths and hills of Germany. There, indeed, a great blow was 
levelled at its root, when a German named Jansen, in the University of 
Louvain, in the Spanish Netherlands, denounced the hypocrisy and pride 
of the Jesuits, demanding instead, humility, piety, and the fear of God 
(1638). His doctrine, called Jansenism, spread especially in France. 

The Church of the Reformation was torn by internal strife, after the 
death of her great fathers. The Lutherans were opposed to the Calvinists ; 
and these two sections were split into sub-divisions. Country ministers 
became too often mere hangers-on of the nobility, in whose gift were the 
village churches ; and the condition of these German curates grew even 
worse than that condition of our English clergy in 1685, of which we read 
in the brilliant pages of Macaulay. The sermon continued to l^e the great 
central power of the Protestant worship ; but a crop of controversies about 
certain mysterious articles of faith, springing up, had well-nigh choked all 
life in the pulpit. But still the mass of the people held by that German 



- OF HISTORY. 269 

Bible which their good Luther had translated for them, amid the solitudes 
of the Wartburg ; and all the war of empty words broke harmless at the 
foot of that great rock of truth. 

A sketch of the coronation of the emperor will best convey an idea of 
the splendor which, soon after the decay of the imperial power, still 
adorned the imperial court ; " The regalia, which were kept at Nuremburg, 
were brought to Frankfort-on-the-Main. Besides some relics, they con- 
sisted of Charlemagne's golden crown, set with rough diamonds ; his gol- 
den ball, sword, and sceptre ; the imperial mantle and robes ; the priestly 
stole and the rings. The election over, a peal of bells ushered in the coro- 
nation day ; the emperor and all the princes assembled in the Romer, and 
proceeded thence on horseback to the cathedral, where, mass having been 
said, the Elector of Mayence rose, as first bishop and arch-chancellor of 
the empire, and, staff in hand, demanded of the emperor in Latin, ' Are 
you willing to preserve the Catholic faith ? ' To which he replied, ' I am 
willing,' and took the oath on the Gospel. Mayence then asked the elec- 
tors, ' Whether they recognized the elected as emperor ? ' To which they 
with one accord replied, ' Let it be done.' 

" The emperor then took his seat, and was anointed by Mayence, whilst 
Brandenburg held the vessel, and assisted in half disrobing the emperor. 
When anointed, he was attired in the robes of Charlemagne ; and with the 
crown on his head he mounted the throne, while the hymn of St. Ambrose 
was chanted by the choir. His first act as emperor was performed by be- 
stowing the honor of knighthood with the sword of Charlemagne, usually 
on a member of the family of Dalberg of Rhenish Franconia. The em- 
peror headed the procession on foot back to the Romer. Cloths of purple 
were spread on the way, and afterwards given to the people. The ban- 
quet was spread in the Romer. The emperor, and (when there happened 
to be one) the Roman king, sat alone at a table six feet high ; the princes 
below ; the empress on one side, three feet lower than the emperor. The 
electoral princes performed their offices. Bohemia, the imperial cup- 
bearer, rode to a fountain of wine, and bore the first glass to the emperor ; 
Pfalz rode to an ox roasting whole, and carved the first slice for the em- 
peror ; Saxony rode into a heap of oats, and filled a measure for his lord ; 
and, lastly, Brandenburg rode to a fountain, and filled the silver ewer. 
The wine, ox, oats, and imperial banquet, with all the dishes and vessels, 
were in conclusion given up to the people."* 

There had been in former days in Germany a secret tribunal of strange 
and terrible power, called Vehmgericht. First formed under Engelbert, 
Archbishop of Cologne, it numbered in the fourteenth century one hundred 

* Menzel's History of Gtermany. 



270 



GREAT EVENTS 



thousand members, all bound together by a solemn oath. No churchman, 
Jew, woman, or servant was admitted a member, or was liable to the punish- 
ment of the court. The meetings of the tribunal were secret, and if 
sentence of death was passed, the unhappy criminal was found dead some 
day, with a dagger, marked S.S.G.G. (stick, stone, grass, grein), sticking in 
his heart. Though this tribunal was now disused, the secresy, which had 
been necessary to shield the judges from the dagger of revenge, was still 
retained in the decisions of the law courts. All German law was despised ; 
and the old Roman law, which had never died out, became general. 
Since the people did not understand this, it became necessary to employ 
advocates, who soon grew rich, and too often were tempted to lengthen 
out a case for the sake of larger fees. 

Torture, borrowed from Roman days, was now inflicted in Germany to 
a terrible extent. Every township and court had a chamber of horrors, 
where the accused — as often innocent as guilty — were racked, thumb- 
screwed, pricked under the nails, burned with hot lead, oil, or vitriol ; and 
on every one of the fair hills of Germany a wheel and a gallows stood, as 
ghastly sentinels over the bleaching bones of the wretches they had slain. 
Some of the punishments were horribly ingenious. At Augsburg, clergy- 
men found guilty of serious crimes, were hung up in iron cages on the 
church towers to die of hunger, because, by the ecclesiastical laws, the 
hands of laymen were not allowed to inflict punishment on priestly 
wrong-doers. And in the White Tower of Cologne a dreadful choice was 
offered to criminals — either to starve to death, or break their necks in 
climbing up to the bread which was hung high above their heads. 

Germany was affected like the rest of Europe by the change which the 
invention of gunpowder wrought upon -the art of war. Troops of Free 
Lances, under experienced captains, roved from court to court, serving for 
pay. These soldiers by profession, caring nothing for the cause of a war, 
but glad to find it raging, sold themselves for the time to the highest 
bidder. They were chiefly pikemen and arquebusiers ; the former bear- 
ing long spears with a hatchet at one end, the latter armed with clumsy 
guns which were rested on forks. Gustavus Adolphus made many changes 
in the arms and accoutrements of his soldiers. Taking away the heavy 
arquebuse, he gave them the lighter musket. The first light artillery 
was used by him ; and those dragoons without armor, carrying carbines, 
whom Mansfeldi had first introduced, were by him brought to much 
greater efficiency. 

The power of the German cities, which had been very formidable in 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when they were united by the 
Hanseatic League, began to decline in the age of the Reformation, and dur- 
ing the storms of the Thirty Years' War crumbled nearly altogether away. 



OF HISTORY. 271 

Of the Hansa towns, Bremen, Lubeck. and Hamburg were free as of old. 
Gradually the great towns had fallen into the hands of the prmces, and 
the spirit of government had grown very aristocratic. The breaking up 
of the Hanseatic League and the consequent decline of German com- 
merce, was one result of the enterprise of the English and Dutch 
merchants, who now began to draw the traffic of the world into their 
havens. The fat old burghers had now grown lazy and luxurious, and 
had little notion of leaving their cans of strong beer, for the manufacture 
of which northern Germany was then famous, to face the toils and 
dangers of war, as their ancestors used to do. Enough for them that their 
fathers had fought and labored for power and wealth ; it was theirs to 
enjoy the ease bought with ancestral sweat and blood. 

So the citizens began to ape the court life, and even exceeded it in 
costly magnificence. This showed itself as well in their dress as in their 
manner of living. Shoes with long points, wide sleeves, and hose, were 
sported by the portly burghers to so great an extent, that the clergy 
began to preach against the ridiculous fashions of the day. And, after the 
Thirty Years' War, among a host of foreign importations of dress, speech, 
and manners, we find the poor fat burgomasters covering their heads with 
long, flowing wigs, in spite of the oozy discomfort which such finery en- 
tailed on the fat fops during the hot noondays of a German summer. 

The amusements of the citizens, like their feasts and finery, were on a 
rich, clumsy scale. The Carnival and the fair days called out all the wild 
fun of the city. The guilds vied with each other in splendid shows and 
decorations, in which something to eat or drink seemed to be the grand 
inspiration of the design. Gigantic tuns were built, like that of Heidel- 
berg ; enormous loaves and sausages were exhibited, to the intense delight 
of the well-fed crowds. As the princes had their buffoons and court 
fools, so each guild had its Hanswurst or Jack-pudding. Plays called 
farces or mummeries, in which the actors wore masks, became a favorite 
amusement of fair-time. 

Still, in the old quarters of German cities we may see the narrow 
streets, and tall, old, gloomy houses, which tell of the troubled Middle 
Ages. Even at the period of the Reformation many changes for the better 
were visible in the streets of the free towns. Schools, libraries, hospitals, 
poor-houses, and hotels were built by rich citizens, for the benefit of 
the poor. Fugger, a wealthy merchant of Augsburg, who was honored 
with the notice of Charles V., built more than a hundred cottages for the 
poor in the suburb of St. Jacobs. In every city there was still a Jewry, or 
Jews' quarter, into which they were locked at dusk. 

The peasants of eastern and western Germany stood on very different 
footing. The Sclavonians of the east — Austria, for example — though not 



272 GREAT EVENTS 

free to leave their lord, had few burdens of taxation to bear ; but the 
boors of Wiirtemberg and the west generally, M^hile they possessed more 
personal freedom, were ground to the very dust with taxes and dues of 
all kinds. From early feudal times it had been the custom for the 
peasant to pay his rent in grain, flax, fruit, cattle, poultry, or eggs. He 
also gave, in accordance with a practice called soccage-service, his own 
labor and that of his horses to his lord at stated times. 

Year after year, as the reckless nobles grew poorer, these dues became 
heavier on the villagers ; and, if any signs of revolt appeared the screw 
only got another turn or two. The baron, who had ridden after wild 
boar and deer day after day over the green crops of his tenantry, came at 
harvest-time clamoring for the better part of the reaped grain. Every change 
in the peasant's family, — birth, marriage, or death — every season of the 
year, every part of his dwelling, or of his little farm, had its own tax ; and 
all must be paid. So bitterly was the German boor oppressed. There 
were left him but two consolations — his love for the fine legends of his 
old Fatherland, which were too homely to please the foreign tastes of his 
degenerate masters ; and his unshaken faiths in those truths of the Reform- 
ed i-eligion, which, floating over the land like winged seeds, had settled 
and taken root even in the poorest cottage homes. Ballads, proverbs, and 
coarse cutting jests were the only way in which the embittered heart of 
the peasant could speak out. 

It would be wrong to omit in this sketch of German life a notice of the 
German universities. During three hundred years (1348-1648) thirty-five 
universities were founded in the land. Before the Reformation the 
Romanist colleges had been ruled by the Franciscans and Dominicans : 
but after the great change they fell into the hands of the wily Jesuits. 
The Protestant universities were at first placed under the Reformed 
clergy, and then under the lawyers and court-counsellors. The students 
were once divided according to their nations, but after the Hussite war 
there was a change. The professors were then paid by the state ; and 
the students (hence called Burscheri) were arranged according to Bursa. 
which were institutions for their support. 

Students of older standing treated those who had newly joined the col- 
lege with great roughness and brutality. A system, resembling the fag- 
ging in some of our public schools, was carried to so great an extent, that 
in 1661 John George II. of Saxony was obliged to prevent the Pennales 
or young students from being robbed by the Schorists or elder ones, who 
took away the good clothes of the newly-joined boys, compelling the poor 
creatures, too, to black their shoes and run their errands. Before the 
Reformation, empty cavilling about words and the splitting of straw in reli- 
gious and political disputations L'rmecj the hollow learning of the schools. 



OF HISTORY. 



^7J 



A more healthy tone was given to the universities, when the study of 
classics began, during the Reformation, to be steadily cultivated, as afford- 
ing the key to the true interpretation of the Bible. As a natural result 
of this, eminent critics and grammarians arose during the sixteenth cen- 
tury ; and the classical scholars of Germany are still looked to with deep 
respect by the learned of all lands. Natural philosophy, medicine, and 
anatomy, began now to receive special attention. 

Even the great and learned were infected at this time with the rage for 
alchemy. The Emperor Rodolph II. is called the prince of alchemists. 
An elector of Saxony spent his whole life in searching for the philosopher's 
stone. Men, supposed to have found out the secret, were chased from 
court to court, or broken on the wheel. The most absurd statements 
were seriously made and believed. A potter announced his discovery that 
the bodies of twenty-four Jews burnt to ashes would yield an ounce of 
gold. The society of the Rosicrucians, founded in Suabia by Valentin 
Andrea, spread abroad the knowledge of the art and the mystical teachings 
of the physician Paracelsus. Besides the philosopher's stone, a universal 
medicine and an elixir of life were eagerly sought for — but these chiefly by 
physicians. Astrology, too, and fortune-telling from the lines of the hand, 
were thoroughly believed in, and afforded to many a profitable trade. 

The belief in witchcraft, long resisted in Germany during the Middle 
Ages, sprang suddenly and strongly up in the fifteenth century. Spren- 
ger, a Dominican monk, wrote a book called " The Witch's Hammer," and 
forthwith all Germany and Switzerland trembled with fear. This man, 
whose greatest pride was that he had burned one hundred old women, ob- 
tained a papal bull against witchcraft. 

It was believed that there was a certain ointment, prepared by Satan him- 
self, with which the woman smeared her body, and thus acquired the powei 
of flying up the chimney and away on a broom, a spinning-wheel, a spit, or 
a cat, to the Blocksberg, where, on Walpurgis Night (the first of May), the 
witches held their great meeting. There, dancing back to back, they wor- 
shipped a black goat, which caught fire of itself and was burned to ashes ; 
and these ashes, being carefully gathered, were carried off by the company, 
to be used in working their magical mischief. The chief ordeal by which an 
accused victim was tried, consisted in tying each thumb to the opposite toe, 
and flinging the poor thing into the water, where, if she floated, she was 
surely a witch. So it was a sorry choice between drowning as a proof of 
innocence, and burning on suspicion of guilt. The misery and wicked- 
ness resulting from this vile superstition cannot be told. 

We read of a faithful wife and mother carried out to the stake, her 
weeping husband and little ones clinging to her side, and there burned 
without mercy Iri 1678 six hundred were doomed at one time by a 



274 



GREAT EVENTS 



bishop, for having, as it was alleged, caused disease among the cattle. So 
late as 1783, a woman was burned for witchcraft at Glarus in Switzerland. 
Some merciful men tried to preach against this wretched error, but their 
voice was drowned in a howl of anger. A priest of Mayence was im- 
prisoned for daring to raise his voice against the superstition, and another 
was himself denounced as a wizard for so doing. 

The old German Minnesingers, whose lays were bright with pictures of 
chivalry, gave place at the close of the fourteenth century to the Master- 
singers, who carried on the manufacture of feeble and pompous verses as 
a profession, under the patronage of the civic guilds. The Mastersingers 
disappeared after the Reformation, and many fine ballads were then com- 
posed by soldiers or travelling students. These became great favorites 
with the common people, who love Nature in such things all the better 
when she wears a homespun dress. The best poems of the Reformation 
age are the satires, which, however, grew very coarse in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Among dramatic writers the most noted of the time was a friend 
of Luther, Hans Sachs, the cobbler-bard of Nuremburg. Religion and 
politics deeply tinged all the stage literature of this age. We find such 
plays represented as " Luther's Life," " The Peasant War," and " The Cal- 
vinistic Post-boy," — in the last of which a Lutheran writer holds his re- 
ligious adversaries up to ridicule ; and during the Thirty Years' War, 
dramas, entitled, " A Swedish Treaty," and " Peace-wishing Germany," 
were publicly performed. 

The Reformation was a great blow to German architecture ; for many 
grand Gothic structures — the Cathedral of Cologne and the Minster of 
Strasburg, for example — were left to stand unfinished. But, where archi- 
tecture lost ground, other arts advanced. Painting on glass was much 
improved ; engraving, which had been invented about the middle of the 
fifteenth century, received a great impulse ; and a German school of paint- 
ing was formed, of which Lucas Cranach, Albert Diirer of Nuremberg, 
and Hans Holbein of Basle were the chief masters. Music, too, especially 
•church music, was cultivated with much success. In 1628 the first Ger- 
man opera, "Daphne," was composed by Schiitz, who- borrowed his ma- 
terials from the Italian. 

GREAT NAMES OF THE SEVENTH PERIOD. 
NiccOLO Machiavelli, born at Florence, 1469 — at twenty-nine made 
Secretary of the " Ten" — employed much in political missions — chief 
work, " The Prince," a book written to please and guide the Medici, 
and first published in 1532 at Rome, after his death — wrote also, 
" Commentary on Livy" and "Short Chronicles" in terzarima — died at 
Florence, June 22, i';27. 



OF HISTORY. 



275 



Albert Durer, born at Nuremberg, 20th May, 1471 — a painter and 
engraver — his masterpiece said to be a drawing of Orpheus — was the 
first man in Germany who taught the rules of perspective according 
to mathematical principles — died 1528, in his 58th year. 

LuDOVico Ariosto, born near Modena, 8th September, 1474 — gained 
the notice of Cardinal Ippolito by his lyrics —when a boy, wrote a 
drama — is considered one of the best Italian satirists — his great work, 
" Orlando Furioso," a chivalric poem, in 46 cantos, describing the 
madness of the famous knight Orlando : it took ten years to write, 
and was published at Ferrara in 15 16 — died 6th Jime, 1533, in his 
59th year. 

Antonio Correggio, born in 1493 or 94, in the Duchy of Modena — 
a painter remarkable for his use of light and shade, and his pure, 
sweet coloring — his pictures, " Notte," " The Penitent Magdalen," 
" Venus Instructing Cupid," and " Ecce Homo," are very beautiful — 
died March 5, 1534. 

NiCOLAUS Copernicus, bom at Thorn in Prussia, some say 19th January, 
1472, others, February 19th, 1473 — spent much time in youth at 
mathematics and painting — struck with the complex nature of the 
Ptolemaic system, he wrote a work on the " Revolutions of the 
Heavenly Bodies," in which he fixes the sun as the centre of the sys- 
tem ; his theory has been shaped out by Kepler, Galileo, Newton, etc., 
and freed from many errors — died in 1543. 

FRANyois Rabelais, born in 1483, at Chinon, in Touraine — a monk, 
then a physician — appointed cur6 of Meudon — a great humorist — 
chief work, a satirical romance, of which a giant Gargantua and his 
son are the heroes — Swift is said to have imitated Rabelais in " Gul- 
liver's Travels" — died in 1553. 

M. Angelo Buonarotti, born in Tuscany, 1474 — the father of epic 
painting — also a fine architect, engineer, sculptor, and poet — the chief 
architect of St. Peter's at Rome — used to study the antique in the 
gardens of Lorenzo de Medici, who took him to his own house — his 
greatest existing picture, " The Last Judgment," the work of eight 
years, finished in 1541 — his statues of "Lorenzo" and of " Moses" are 
magnificent — died February 17, 1563, aged 8g. 

Vecellio Titian, born in the Venetian State, 1477 — fellow-pupil of 
Giorgione — painted the portraits of doges, popes, and kings — lived at 
the courts of Charles V. and Philip II. — it was his fallen brush that 
Charles V. picked up, saying, " Titian is worthy of being served by 
Caesar" — among his pictures may be named, " The Tribute Money," 
" The Martyrdom of San Lorenzo," " Bacchus and Ariadne" — died of 
plague in 1576, aged 99 — the finest colorist that ever lived. 
10* 



^76■ GREAT EVENTS 

Camoens, born at Lisbon or Coimbra, about 15 17 — the great poet of Por- 
tugal — studied at Coimbra — saw service against the Moors — sailed to 
India — returned a beggar after sixteen years' roving — died in an hos- 
pital, 1579 — his great poem, " Tlie Lusiad," an epic national picture 
of Portuguese glory, of which Vasco di Gama is a leading hero, was 
first printed in 1572. 

Paul Veronese, born at Verona, about 1532 — son of a sculptor — an emi- 
nent master of ornamental painting — painted the walls of the ducal 
palace at Venice — his chief works are there — " The Marriage at Cana," 
one of his finest, is in the Louvre — died very rich at Venice in 1588. 

Michel, Lord of Montaigne, born 1533— son of a noble of Perigord 
— a judge in the Parliament of Bordeaux, and afterwards mayor of 
that city — chief work, his " Essais," printed in 1580 — tinged with 
scepticism — died 13th September, 1592, aged 60. 

ToRQUATO Tasso, born at Sorrento, in 1544 — a great Italian poet — 
studied at Padua — wrote a chivalric poem, " Rinaldo," at eighteen, also 
many love sonnets — his great poem, "Jerusalem Delivered," is an 
epic on the great Crusade, published at Parma, complete, in 1581, 
aftei-wards at Mantua in 1584 — while on a visit to Rome to receive 
the laurel wreath, he died, 25th April, 1595, aged 51. 

Edmund Spenser, born 1553 — second great English poet — secretary to 
the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland — lived at Kilcolman, county of Cork 
— chief work, " The Faerie Queene," an allegorical poem, written in a 
stanza of nine lines, called the Spenserian — died 1598. 

Brake Tycho, born of noble parents at Knudsthorp, in Denmark, 14th 
December, 1546 — the reviver of correct astronomy — remarkable for 
his invention of instruments, and his numerous works — much favored 
by Emperor Rodolph II. — died October 24, 1601. 

William Shakespeare, born 1564 — the prince of dramatists — born and 
died at Stratford-on-Avon — lived chiefly in London — wrote thirty-five 
plays between 1591 and 1614 — wrote also sonnets and tales — died 
1616. 

Cervantes (or Saavedra), bom at AlcalA de Henares, in Castile, Octo- 
ber 9, 1547 — famed as the author of the romance " Don Quixote," first 
published in 1605 — wrote also " Journey to Parnassus," a satire on 
bad poets, and many novels — in early life a soldier — died at Madrid. 
April 23, 1616, aged 69. 

Jacques- AUGUSTE De Thou, born at Paris, October 8, 1553 — a presi- 
dent of the Parliament of Paris — made royal librarian by Henry 
IV. — chief work, a Latin history of his own time, from 1544-1607, in 
138 books — died at Paris, May 7, 1617 — wrote also Latin poems. 

Francis Bacon, bom 1561 — Lord Chancellor and Viscount St. Albans 



OF HISTORY. 277 

—a great philosopher— wrote ten volumes— chief work, " The Instau- 
ration of the Sciences," a union of two books, namely, " The Pro- 
ficience and Advancement of Learning" (1605), and the " NovuKi 
Organum" (1620) — died 1626. 

John Kepler, born at Weil in Wiirtemberg, 2ist December, 1571— 
studied at Tubingen— a great astronomer— appointed Professor of 
Astronomy at Gratz in Styria, 1593-94— afterwards principal mathe- 
matician to the emperor— great work, his " New Astronomy," con- 
taining his book on the motion of Mars— died of fever, November 
1630, aged 59. 

Lope DeVega, born at Madrid, November 25, 1562— a great Spanish 
dramatist— at first a soldier— served in the Armada— then a secretary 
to the Inquisition — then a priest — remarkable for the number of his 
writings— served as a model to Corneille and others— 518 dramas re- 
main from his pen, perhaps twice as many lost— died August 26, 1635, 
aged 73. 

Peter Paul Rubens, bom at Cologne, 29th June, 1577— greatest pamter 
of the Flemish school— painted the "Descent from the Cross" (Ant- 
werp), and the allegory of " War and Peace" (Nat. Gallery)— patron- 
ized by Charles I. of England— died at Antwerp very rich. May 30, 
1640, aged 63. 

Antony Vandyck, bom at Antwerp, March 22, 1599— son of a glass 
painter— pupil of Rubens— came to England in 1632— celebrated 
for his portraits — those of Charles I. and Strafford very fine — 
best historical picture, "The Crucifixion" — died in London, 1641, 
aged 42. 

Galileo, born at Pisa, Febraary 15, 1564— first to use the telescope much 

in astronomy— made his first telescope in 1609— discovered mountains 

in the moon, satellites of Jupiter. Saturn's rings, etc.— great work, 

' " Dialogue on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems"— died January 

8, 1642, aged 78. 
Nicholas Poussin, born at Andely in Normandy, June 19, I594— a great 
painter— among his works are the " Death of Germanicus," the " Tak- 
ing of Jerusalem," and the " Last Supper"— died at Rome, NovembeJ 
EQ. 1665, aged 71. 



EIGHTH PERIOD. 

FEOM THE END OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR TO THE BEGINNING Of 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 
Central Point: REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, 1685 A.D. 

Five great periods— Battle of Rocroi— Les Frondenrs— Battle of St. Antoine— Taking of 
Dunkirk— Louis seeks the empire— Treaty of the Pyrenees — Death of Mazarin — Colbert — 
War in Belgium— The Triple Alliance— William of Orange— Spirit of the Dutch— Peace 
of Nimeguen— Arrogance of Louis— Edict of Nantes revoked— Turks beaten at Vienna — 
League of Augsburg— Battle of La Hogne— Peace of Ryswick— War of Spanish Succes- 
sion—The Grand Alliance— Victories of Marlborough- Treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt— 
Last days of Louis— His character— The regency of Orleans. 

The long reign of Louis XIV., woven as it is into a thousand great 
events of European history, may best be viewed in five sections : — 

1. The administration of Mazarin, extending from the beginning of the 

reign to the cardinal's death in 1661. 

2. From the coming of Louis himself to power, to the treaty of Nime- 

guen in 1678. This period was occupied chiefly by a war in the 
Spanish Netherlands. 

3. An interval of eleven years, during which the domestic policy of the 

king is most clearly displayed (1678-89). 

4. A second great war, in which William III. of England was the life 

and soul of a powerful league, formed to check the ambition of 
Louis. This war broke out in 1689, and was closed by the treaty 
of Ryswick in 1697. 

5. The last period, embracing the great War of the Spanish Succession, 

which opened in 1701, and was closed by the treaty of Utrecht in 
1 7 13. Two years later Louis died. 

When in May, 1643, Anne of Austria was left with her little Louis, then 
not five years old, at the head of French affairs, she placed all her confi- 
dence in the Italian priest, Mazarin, whom Richelieu with his dying 
breath had recommended to Louis XIII. A victory won over the Span- 



GREA T S VENTS OF HIS TOR Y. 279 

iards by the young prince of Cond^ at Rocroi, on the northeast frc: tier 
of France, only a few days after the opening of the reign, auguring "well 
for the brilliance pf the new era, raised both Mazarin and Cond^ high in 
public favor. 

Mazarin directed the closing operations of the French armies in the 
Thirty Years' War ;. but these were marked by no great events. About 
the time that the treaty of Westphalia was signed, an insurrec- 
tion broke out in France. This, which is known as the civil 164:8 
war of the Fronde (from the French word for a sling), convuls- a.d. 
ed the land for six years. The courtiers in mockery called the 
rebels Frondeurs (slingers), because on the first outbreak of the quarrel 
the gamins of the Paris streets were foremost with their slings. 

The cardinal had many enemies. A strong, discontented party, direct- 
ed chiefly by Coadjutor Archbishop de Retz, afterwards a cardinal, and 
.he Duchess de Longueville, plotted unceasingly against him. From the 
highest to the lowest, the women of Paris were deep in the politics of the 
day, and wielded a remarkable influence over the movements of the na- 
tion. On the one side in this civil war were the queen, Mazarin, and the 
courtiers ; on the other, the leading nobles, the parliament, and the citi- 
zens of Paris. The disputes between the court and the Parliament of 
Paris formed the chief cause of the rebellion. One day in August, 1648, 
several of the most obstinate members of the parliament were arrested 
and sent into exile. At once the Paris mobs — always inflammable — ris- 
ing in a blaze of revolt, threw up barricades in the streets. Anne, her 
royal son, and her pliant minister had soon to bow before the storm. Re- 
tiring to St. Germains, they lived a while in poverty so great that they 
were obliged to pawn the crown-jewels for their daily bread. 
Mazarin was declared by the parliament an enemy to the 1649 
kingdom and the public peace. The Frondeurs had the upper A.D. 
hand, and rose aimlessly over all France, until Cond4, siding 
with the king, scattered the troops of the pa'.liament. The court then 
returned to Paris, where the mob, veerinrj round with their wonted fickle- 
ness, received the cardinal with roars of joy. Cond§, whose great mili- 
tary renown cannot blind us to his arrogance and discontent, having de- 
serted the royal cause, was arrested in 1650 at the council-board, along 
with some of the leading Frondeurs. The rebels again took arms under 
Turenne, whose name as a soldier was rising fast. Mazarin, obliged to 
leave France, took refuge in Cologne, where he still wove his crafty 
schemes, and continued, though far away, to act as pilot of the slate. 

Turenne then joined the court party, and a great battle was fought be- 
tween him and Cond^, in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Young Louis looked 
on from a hill. All Paris sat waiting the event of the fight, which 



2 8o GREA T E VENTS 

raged until the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, a leading Frondeur, 
firing the cannon of the Bastile upon the royal troops, forced 
1652 Turenne to retreat. Thus the Frondeurswon a short-lived tri« 
A.D. umph ; but Louis, again dismissing, for a little while, Mazarin, 
whose stay at Cologne had not been long, won the citizens over 
1 5 his side. The Fronde war was really over, though its embers smoldered 
for a year or two longer. De Retz was in prison ; Conde fled to the Spanish 
armies, with them to draw sword against his country. The parliament 
submitted ; and in 1653 the triumphant Mazarin became again prime min- 
ister of France. 

During these miserable years of aimless change and bloodshed, the great 
English revolution reached its crisis. How different was the picture on each 
side of the narrow sea ! In England, a great national movement, whose 
forces were centralized, and whose aims were directed by one master-mind, 
proceeded steadily towards a fixed purpose. In France, a jumble of petty 
street fights and broken laws, with leaders changing sides, and no man 
seeming to know his own mind, except the crafty Italian fox, who, watch- 
ing the scrambling crowds, bided his own time for a spring. 

A war with Spain, growing out of the Thirty Years' War, continued 
meanwhile. The renegade Conde, fighting under Spanish colors, was 
opposed by the gi-eat Marshal Turenne. The Spanish Netherlands were 
the scene of war. The genius of Turenne had the best in this struggle ; 
and, when Mazarin induced Cromwell to throw in the weight 
1658 of his great name, and to send his invincible ships and pike- 
A.D. men to the aid of France, Dunkirk, the strongest fortress in 
Flanders, fell before the allied besiegers. According to the 
treaty, Dunkirk was made over to the English, who received it, no doubt, 
in the hope that it would prove a second Calais, and once more give Eng- 
land a footing on the Continent. How basely it was sold by our second 
Charles we all know ; but we of the nineteenth century know, too, that no 
Calais or Havre or Dunkirk would ever repay Britain for the blood 
and money it would cost her to keep up a useless power in France or 
Flanders. 

Upon the death of the Emperor Ferdinand III., Mazarin put forth all 

his energies to gain the imperial throne for his master, Louis. Louis 

himself, too, was dazzled by the glittering prize ; but neither the gold of 

the young king, nor the craft of the old priest could prevent 

1658 the election of Ferdinand's son, Leopold, King of Hungary 

A.D. and Bohemia. Thenceforward there never ceased to rankle 

in Louis' heart a bitter hatred of the emperor, which, sharpened 

by his lust of absolute power, was the cause of all his great wars. 

From that hour he never ceased to assail the power of the House of Austria. 



OF HISTORY. ■ 281 

The war between France and Spain was closed by tht treaty of the 
Pyrenees, when Mazarin and his 'rival in craft, Don Luis de Haro, the 
Spanish minister, met on the Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa. 
The cliief terms of tliis treaty were, that Louis XIV., should Nov. 
marry the Infanta Maria Theresa ; that Conde should be par- 1659 
doned for his desertion of the French cause ; that Roussillon a.d. 
should become a part of France ; and that the northern French 
frontier should be extended to Gravelines. By the same treaty Louis 
agreed to renounce all claims to the Spanish throne, which might arise 
from his marriage. This he did both for himself and his descendants. 

Cardinal Mazarin, whose hold upon the king never loosened to the 
last, died of gout on the gth of March, 1661. His avarice was unbound- 
ed. In his last days he had, to use Voltaire's words, two-thirds 
of the national coin in his chests; and the livres, rubies, 1661 
emeralds, and diamonds, shared by his will among his relatives A.D. 
and friends, seem like the treasures of some fairy-favoi^ed prince 
in the Arabian tales. He was the very prince of dissemblers, supple, sly, 
and polite. His death left Louis XIV. the most absolute ruler in Chris- 
tendom. 

Louis was then twenty-three. With Colbert as his Minister of Fi- 
nance, and Louvois as his Minister of War, he began the most splendid 
period of his reign. 

Colbert, who found the state loaded with enormous debts, and the 
farmers of the revenue pocketing fifty millions a year, set himself to re- 
trieve the desperate state of the finances. A man of method in all things, 
he knew business well, for his early years had been spent in a counting- 
house at Lyons. Cutting down the land and income-tax, he greatly 
increased the taxes on articles of consumption, prefei-ring the indirect 
method of raising a revenue. Then he steadily encouraged commerce ; 
established colonies ; gave an impulse to manufactures ; cut the Langue- 
doc Canal ; built dockyards at Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon ; made 
Marseilles a free port ; bought Dunkirk and Mardyk from Charles II. ; 
and sent French consuls to the chief ports of the Levant. This man of 
marble and of method, having served his king faithfully for twenty-two 
years, had the vexation in his last years to see ruinous loans obtained for 
the ceaseless wars of his royal master. But a source of still deeper grief 
was the knowledge that the Protestants, whose skill and industry he 
justly regarded as the great prop of French commerce, were hampered 
with penal laws, and shut quite out of office. He died in 1683. 

On the death of the Spanish king, Philip IV., in 1665, Louis, conscious 
of his strength, laid claim to the Spanish Netherlands. Wilfully shutting 
his eyes to the treaty of the Pyrenees, he pointed, in defence of his claim 



282 • GREAT EVENTS 

to an old law of Brabant, by which, in cases of private property, tlie 
daughter of a first marriage sometimes came in before the son of a 
second. The new King of Spain was a delicate child, and the queen, 
mother a weak woman. " Why," thought Louis, " may I not seize th,e 
golden moment? My friend, De Witt, is ruler of Holland ; and there is 
none to guard Flanders." So, with three great armies, amounting to sixty 
thousand men, he passed the frontier, and pierced Belgium to the Scheldt. 
The many towns he took. Lisle among the number, were fortified for him 
on a new plan by the great military engineer, Vauban. 

Europe was startled into action by this sudden success. England, 
Sweden, and Holland formed the Triple Alliance, of which William of 
Orange was the chief promoter. Louis then thought it best to wait for a 
time, until he could undermine and blow to pieces a confederacy so dan- 
gerous to his plans. In 1668 he therefore agreed to the peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle. 

But, even while the ink that signed the peace was wet, his heart was 
charged with war. This audacious little Holland must be crushed. It 
was a fitting time for the blow, since civil strife between the Orange and 
De Witt factions had weakened the nation. With ease he bought off the 
mean Charles II. of England, whose aid was the great hope of the Dutch ; 
and then, gathering a fleet of one hundred sail, and arming one hundred 
and twetfity thousand French soldiers with the bayonet, a new and terrible 
weapon, he began the war again. The Dutch placed their army, not 
numbering at the outside fifty thousand, under the command of Orange, 
who, even at the unripe age of twenty-two, was esteemed for his grave 
steadiness and silent wisdom. 

Early in 1672 the French crossed the Rhine in great force. Louis had 
with him Turenne and Condd, the greatest captains of the age ; and no- 
thing seemed surer than the ruin of the Dutch Republic. Town after town 
surrendered to the French armies ; and William retreated with his little 
band to the province of Holland. In a few weeks Guelders, Utrecht, and 
Overyssellay at the feet of Louis, who, fixing his brilliant court at Utrecht, 
wasted the precious days in idle splendor. 

Meanwhile the sturdy burghers of Amsterdam had caught the spirit of 
their young captain. Remembering what their forefathers had done in the 
Spanish war, they opened the sluices, let in the sea, and laid the whole 
land under water. But the history of this noble struggle is stained with a 
red crime. John and Cornelius de Witt, strong Republicans, by whose 
means the Perpetual Edict, abolishing for ever the office of Stadtholder, 
was passed in 1667, fell victims to the factious rage of the Orange party. 
They were dragged from prison and torn to pieces by a mob. 

The spirit of the Dutch was wonderful. Resolved to cling to the uttei 



OF HISTORY. 



= 83 



most to the low meadows they had rescued from the ocean — as William 
strongly put it in his reply to the English ambassador,— ' to die in disputing 
the last ditch," they had still, even if their last standing-place in Europe 
were cut from beneath their feet, one resource left. The sea was open, 
and when the worst came, far away beyond its eastern waves, " the Dutch 
Commonwealth might commence a new and more glorious existence, and 
might rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst the sugar-canes and nutmeg- 
trees, the Exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more 
learned Leyden." And, as if the elements were commissioned to preserve 
this last safegijard for the Dutch, a mighty storm arose, which shattered 
the French fleet, and prevented new troops from landing. 

Gradually aid came from many quarters to revive the hopes of Holland. 
Peace was made with England. Then William of Orange 
met the veteran Conde on the bloody field of Seneffe, and, 1674 
though worsted, extorted from his noble foe the praise of hav- A.D. 
ing acted like an old captain in everything, except in venturing 
his life like a young soldier. 

At the same time Turenne was fighting successfully on the Rhine, 
where, with a small force of twenty thousand, he cleared Alsace of a host 
of German and Austrian invaders. There, early in the next year (1675), 
while surveying the position of his rival Montecuculi, he was killed by a 
cannon-ball. A tomb at St. Denis received his body, which there mingles 
with the dust of the French kings. 

After six years of war, during which Louis put forth his full strength 
in unavailing efforts to break the spirit of the Dutch, a treaty 
was made at Nimeguen, of which one of the leading terms was, 1678 
that the French king should keep Franche-Comt^ and several A.D. 
towns in the southern Netherlands. 

Between the treaty of Nimeguen and the outbreak of the great war in 
1689, there were eleven years of comparative peace, which afford us a cleai 
view of the policy followed by " Le Grand Monarque." So the munici- 
pal authorities of Paris had begun to call their king, who, in the new-blown 
magnificence of the name, squared his elbows and strutted on his red- 
heeled shoes more majestically than ever. The task of establishing a 
thorough despotism, begun by Richelieu, and earnestly wrought at by 
Mazarin, was completed by Louis XIV. The picture of the beardless 
king of seventeen, flinging himself from his horse after a sharp ride from 
Vincennes, and striding with heavy boots and whip in hand into the cham- 
ber where the Parliament of Paris sat, discussing his edict upon coinage, 
gives us a glimpse of a will which hardened into iron as the years went by. 
" I forbid you, M. le President," said the royal stripling, " to discuss my 
edicts." 



284 GREAT EVENTii 

The key to his whole policy lies in his well-known words, when some 
Jne talked of the State. " L'Etat ? " said Louis, " c'est moi." It was the 
sublime of arrogance. Acting upon this principle of selfish centraliza- 
tion, he made Paris the heart of France more truly than it had ever been; 
and still every throb of the mighty centre is felt from Calais to the Pyre- 
nees. A revolution in Paris decides the destiny of France. 

The reign of Louis XIV. is the most brilliant period of French litera- 
ture. Of this more will be said in a future chapter. Science and art 
flourished too, but in less degree. 

Louis' great blunder as a statesman was his silly treatment- of the French 
Protestants. They had come to be the marrow of the land. They car- 
ried on nearly all the manufactures, and numbered among them the most 
skillful workpeople ; yet Louis never looked kindly on them. One right 
after another was wrested from them, until at last their ministers were for- 
bidden to preach, and their teachers to give instruction, except in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic. Public offices and professions were shut against 
them ; and they lost even the shelter of the laws. Regiments of dragoons 
hunted them down ; and these barbarous raids —called dragonnades — scat- 
tered the poor cotters and silk-weavers over all the face of Europe. And 
to crown this senseless cruelty, the Edict of Nantes was revoked two years 
after the death of Colbert, who was the best friend the Huguenots had in 
his day. 

This was the last drop in their cup of bitterness. Shaking the dust 
of France for ever from their feet, six hundred thousand car- 

1685 ried their brave hearts and skillful hands to other lands, where 
A.D. quiet homes, bright with religious freedom, were the rewards 
of honest toil. England, Holland, and Germany received the 
"refugees. The virulent hatred which Louis bore towards the Protestants 
may be traced in a great measure to the influence of Madame de Mainte- 
non, who, at the time of the revocation, filled his dead wife's place. She 
had been the wife of the buffoon-poet, Scarron. Formerly a Calvinist her- 
self, she hated and would hunt to the death those who clung to the faith 
she had abjured. Another motive to the persecution of the Protestants 
was Louis' desire to gratify the bigoted James II. of England. 

In the same year, as if to show his utter disregard of Christianity in 
any form, Louis bitterly insulted and humbled Pope Innocent XL, send- 
ing his soldiers even into the sacred city. This example certain later 
rulers of France have not been slow to follow. 

In 1683 an event occurred — a turning-point in European history — in 
which Louis played a very shabby part. The Turks, mustering in over- 
whelming force, two hundred thousand strong, marched upon Vienna, frorn 
which the Emperor Leopold fled in terror. It was a terrible moment 



OF HISTORY. 285 

Once before had the liberties of Christendom been in similar deadly 
peril, with the Moslem sabre swung for a fatal blow, which seemed about 
to cut them forever to the earth. It was ten centuries earlier, on the plain of 
Tours, when Charles the Hammer saved Europe. Now, too, a deliverer 
arose. John Sobieski, King of Poland, leading an army of Poles and 
Germans to the rescue, drove the Turks from their trenches in such head- 
long rout, that tents, cannon, baggage, even the famous standard of Ma- 
homet, were all left behind. It turned out afterwards that Louis had se- 
cretly encouraged the Turks, although in public he had plumed himself 
greatly on his forbearance in not having fallen upon the distressed em- 
peror in this time of trouble. 

The League of Augsburg was formed in 1686, in order to check the 
overweening ambition of the French king, and thus preserve the balance 
of power. Formed at first by the princes of the empire, it soon included 
Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Savoy, and last, though far from least, 
England. The great second revolution soon dethroned James II. of Eng- 
land, and placed William of Orange, Louis' mightiest foe, in a positiou 
of commanding eminence. That great captain accepted with grave joy 
the leadership of the league. 

Then war opened in i68g. Louis had two armies in Flanders, and sent 
another into Spain. Then, that there might be a barrier between France 
and Germany, with fire and sword he turned the fertile Palatinate into a 
silent, black, blood-stained desert. At the same time he supported the 
cause of the dethroned James in Ireland — with how little success every 
reader of English history knows. At first, indeed, the cause of Louis 
prospered, especially by sea. In 1690, his admiral, Tourville, beat the 
Dutch and English fleets in a hot action off Beachy Head. His marshals 
overran Savoy and Flanders ; and in 1692 the strong fortress of Namur 
fell before his troops. But even then there fell on him the heaviest blow 
he had yet felt. 

About four o'clock on a summer morning. Admiral Russell, sailing in 
the channel with English and Dutch ships, caught sight of 
the French fleet under Tourville cruising off" Cape La Hogue. May 19j 
They closed at once in action, and through all the hot noonday 1692 
the cannon roared. Not a French ship would have been saved, A.D. 
had not a fog fallen in the afternoon. As it was, the loss of 
twenty-three great line-of-battle ships crippled the navy of Louis beyond 
remedy. And so his great scheme of invading England vanished into 
thin air. 

By land, however, the French arms were still victorious. At Steinkirk 
and Nerwinde (1693) — the latter a most bloody day — William was beaten 
by Luxemburg. But William was one of those rare characters whose 



e86 GREAT EVENTS 

defeats are really victories, so many blows of the hammer that but weld 
and toughen the metal. He bided his time ; and the time came at last. 
When Luxemburg and Louvois died, Louis, with an empty purse and a 
famine-stricken kingdom, ceased to show himself in his camp. The news 
of English mortars shelling into ruin the walls of his seaports — Calais, 
Havre, and Dunkirk — quite sank his failing heart. Then William retook 
Namur, and Louis was glad to conclude the treaty of Ryswick, 
1697 by which his rival was acknowledged to be the lawful king of 
A.D. England. One great point gained by Louis was his being con- 
firmed in the possession of Strasburg, which he had seized 
in 1681, and had caused Vauban to surround with huge fortifications. 
Thus he still held a key to the Rhine. 

The marriage of Louis to Maria Theresa of Spain has been already 
noticed, and we have seen him claiming the Spanish Netherlands through 
this marriage. We now find him, in 1700, upon the death of Charles II. 
of Spain, proclaiming, one November morning, at his levee, that his grand- 
son, Philip, Duke of Anjou, was King of Spain. To this prince the dying 
Charles, indignant at an arrangement for parcelling out the Spanish do- 
minions, which had been proposed by the English king, had already left 
the throne by will. But the Archduke Charles of Austria, the second son 
of the emperor by a Spanish princess, came forward as a competitor for 
the vacant kingship ; and the destructive " War of the Spanish Succession" 
began. 

England, Austria, and Holland united in a league called the Grand Al- 
liance, which had for its chief aim the rescue of Spain from 
1701 the Bourbons. Prussia and Denmark also supported the Aus- 
A.D. trian claimant, who called himself Charles III. The grand- 
son of Louis was known among his friends as Philip V. 
The death of William III. of England in 1702 was a heavy blow to 
the Austrian cause ; but of the two captains who rose to fill his place, 
one, at least, was greater in the field than he — this was John Churchill, 
Duke of Marlborough, so great a soldier, so mean a man ; and the other 
was Prince Eugene of Savoy. 

It would be useless and confusing to trace in detail the marchings and 
counter-marchings, battles, sieges, and surprises of this war of twelve 
campaigns. Louis had now no marshals like Conde or Turenne. Men, 
called Villars, Tallard, Marsin, and Villeroi, led his armies, skillfully, no 
doubt, so far as their skill could go, and with all due attention to the cut- 
and-dry rules of warfare ; but they lacked that original genius for soldier- 
ing which nature had given to their foes. Besides, Louis required from 
them an implicit obedience to his will, which greatly cramped theii 
' plans. 



OF HISTORY. 287 

In 1702 the Dutch and English ships destroyed a French fleet in the 
Bay of Vigo, and took many Spanish galleons heaped with American 
gold. Then came Marlborough's four magnificent victories, which well 
deserve our notice. 

A French and Bavarian army of eighty thousand men, under Tallard 
and Marsin, lay on a hill above the Danube, between the village of Blen- 
heim and a thick wood. A brook, whose water spread into the swampy 
plain, ran between them and an allied force of equal numbers, 
under Marlborough and Eugene. Tallard allowed Marlbor- Aug^. 2, 
ough to cross the swamp unopposed ; and thus his chance of 1704 
victory was gone. Rapidly the English general scattered the A.D. 
French horse and foot, slaying and seizing nearly forty thou- 
sand men. The same year is renowned in the annals of Britain for the 
taking of Gibraltar from the Spaniards. 

At Ramillies, a Belgian village, the second great blow was given. The 
struggle was now between Marlborough and Villeroi ; and the English 
chief threw his rival's lines into confusion by a feigned attack on the left 
wing (May 23, 1706). 

Oudenarde on the Scheldt was the scene of the third great triumph. 
There, during a long summer day, Marlborough, with Eugene not far off, 
beat a part of the great French force under Brunswick and Vendome so 
thoroughly, that they all fled next night by five different roads Quly 11, 
1708). The victors then took Lisle. 

Within a league, of Mons, which Marlborough and Eugene were be- 
sieging in 1709, Marshal Villars intrenched himself strongly, beside the 
village of Malplaquet. The allied leaders advanced to dislodge him (Sep. 
11) and a long and bloody battle was fought, until Villars was wounded, 
and his second in command, Boufflers, beat a speedy retreat. The capture 
of Mons followed at once. 

Blows like these were irresistible ; but besides, the power of the French 
had been broken in Italy. In Spain alone, notwithstanding the early 
successes of the Archduke Charles, aided by the splendid talents of the 
English Earl of Peterborough, the arms of Louis were crowned with 
victoiy. The battle of Almanza, won in 1707 by the Duke of Berwick, 
placed Philip V. on the Spanish throne. Henceforth Charles III. of Spain 
was nowhere. 

Smarting under so many reverses, it is no wonder that Louis longed for 
peace. A conference, soon broken up, however, was opened in 1710 at 
Gertruydenberg. The war continued. But the death of the Emperor 
Joseph in 171 1 gave a new turn to affairs. The Archduke Charles 
succeeded his bi-other on the imperial throne. Marlborough, already 
in disgrace at home, was fast sinking deeper in the slougli. All 



288 GREAT EVENTS 

Europe was tired of the deadly war ; and so the Peace of Utrecht waa 
signed. 

By this treaty England got possession of Gibraltar and Minorca — great 

keys of the Mediterranean — along with Newfoundland, St. Kitts, 

Mar. 31j and Hudson's Bay. Philip V. was permitted to hold the Span- 

1713 ish throne, on condition of giving up all claim to the crcvfn of 

A.D. France. The treaty of Rastadt, between Austria and France, 

which completed the Peace of Utrecht, was signed March 6th, 

1714. Austria received Naples, Milan, Sardinia, and Spanish Flanders ; 

while Lisle and French Flanders went to France ; the Rhine, too, being 

fixed as her eastern boundary at Alsace. 

The reign of Louis XIV. closed in the following year. For seventy- 
two winters he had held the sceptre of France ; and during fifty-four of 
these he had centralized all power in himself. Before cutting down the 
gray-haired monarch, death left his splendid palace lonely. His son, the 
Dauphin, died in 1711. His grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, died in 
1712. None lived but a little child, his great grandson, afterwards Louis 
XV., to take up the sceptre which was dropping from his withered hand. 
He died on the ist of September, 171 5, aged seventy-seven. 

Louis XIV. received the title of Great from the lips of his flatterers ; 
but history has not endorsed the name, Great in sinful extravagance, 
great in love of pomp and show, great in selfishness and irreligion, he was 
perhaps the most remarkable specimen of a royal fool that the world has 
ever seen. He wore shoes with red heels, four inches high, to lift his 
little body to the level of average sized men. Strutting about with rolling 
eyes and out-turned toes, bedizened with rich laces and velvets, diamonds 
and gold, he strove by his majestic deportment to awe the men and capti- 
vate the women of his realm. His example, penetrating all French 
society, froze the whole land into an artificiality of life and manners so 
costly, that the nation was beggared by the icy splendor. 

Louis XV. being only five years old when his great grandfather died, 
the government was placed in the hands of Philip, Duke of Orleans, the 
nephew of the dead king. This prince, whose licentious extravagance was 
rivalled by that of his worthless minister, the Cardinal DuBois, held the 
regency for eight years (1715-1723). During this time the 
1719 chief event was the rise and bursting of a great bubble — the 
A.D. Mississippi Company, similar to our own South Sea scheme. 
It was started and directed by a Scotchman, named John 
Law. The shares rose to twelve hundred per cent. Then came 
a panic, a crash, and a scene of wide-spread bankruptcy and ruin, 
In 1723, Louis XV., then aged thirteen, took the reins of power him- 
self. 



OF HISTORY. 289 

SIX FRENCH KINGS OS" THE HOUSE OF BOURBON. 

A.D. 

Henry IV. (King of Navarre) 1589 

Louis XIII. (the Just) 1610 

Louis XIV. (the Great) 1643 

Louis XV. (the Well-beloved) I7i5 

Louis XVI i774 

Louis XVII 1793-95 



CHAPTER 11. 

PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA, AND CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN. 

Central Point: BATTLE OF PULTOWA, June 15, 1709 A.D. 

Early facts of Russian history— Accession of Peter the Great— His reforms— His first success 

—His tour among the dockyards— His social reforms— Charles XII. of Sweden— Battle of^ 

Nanra— Building of St. Petersburg— Charles invades Russia— Battle of Pnltowa— War on 

the Pruth- Charles in Turkey— Peter's second tour— His last exploit— His d-^ath— His 

character by Voltaire. 

We have already seen the foundation of the Russian Empire laid in the 
ninth century by the Norseman Ruric ; the conversion of Wladimir about 
986 to the Christianity o^the Greek Church ; and the extinction of the 
royal race of Ruric in 1598, in the person of Feodor, last of the Norman 
czars. That Russia was overrun by the Tartars of Zenghis Khan, and 
rescued again from their hands during the reign of Ivan III., who ascend- 
ed the throne in 1462, are the most remarkable facts in this period of 
seven centuries. 

The Russia of our day is the creation, humanly speaking, of Peter the 
Great, who became sole czar in the year 1689. His father, who had reign- 
ed from 1645 to 1676, had been honored with the title of the " Good 
Alexis." 

In 1682, Peter was crowned, along with his half-brother Ivan ; but the 
latter, a poor deformed idiot, was only a name in the state. Having baf- 
fled the ambitious schemes of his half-sister Sophia, a bold and beautiful 
woman, who acted as regent, the young Peter, when only seventeen 
seized alone the sceptre, which he was destined to wield so well. 

This tall, rough, debauched youth set himself first to reform the army, 
as the right hand of his power. In this task he was lucky 
enough to have the aid of two skillful officers, Patrick Gordon, 1689 
a Scotchman, and Le Fort, a Swiss, who soon filled his ranks A.D. 
with recruits from western Europe. The long cumbrous coat 
was exchanged for a shorter dress. Hair and beards were cropped close 



2QO GREAT EVENTS 

and the Russian soldiers were soon dressed, armed, and drilled in the 
European fashion. The navy, too, received much of Peter's attention. 
We are told that at first he sailed his yachts, built by an old Dutch exile 
named Brandt, upon a lake near his palace. Then he saw the sea at 
Archangel, felt the weakness of Russia in having little or no available 
sea-board, and resolved not to rest until the Black Sea, the Baltic, and 
the Caspian should be merely lakes in a Russian Empire, upon whose 
shores Atlantic and Indian waves should wash for thousands of leagues. 

Beginning war, therefore, against Turkey, in aid of the Poles, he seized 
Azof, thus gaining his first success (1696). A plot formed by the Strelitz 
against his life — they were guards organized by Ivan the Terrible — 
was met by Peter with singular courage, and punished with barbarous 
cruelty. 

He then began his first tour of Europe. Leaving Gordon with som', 
thousand soldiers to support the old Boyard who acted as' regent, he set 
out for Holland. There, at Saardam, he began to explore the shipping, 
jumping down into the holds, and running up the rigging, amid the jeers 
of Dutch sailors and street-loungers, whom he sometimes refreshed him- 
self by thrashing. 

But odder still was his settling down in two rooms and a garret as Pie- 
ter Timmerman, receiving his wages every Saturday night as a common 
ship-carpenter, and every day boiling his own pot for dinner. At the 
same time he picked up rope and sail-making, blacksmith's work, and as 
much surgery as enabled him to draw teeth and bleed. Then (1698) he 
went to England, where William III. received him heartily, and made 
him a present of a fine yacht. But Peter was not happy until he got his 
darling adze in his hand again. Lord Caermarthen was his attendant 
while he was in England, and many a night the two sat up together drink- 
ing brandy and pepper. But no matter how late he sat, Peter rose at 
four, to his work. He seldom spent more than a quarter of an hour at 
his meals. Having seen Deptford, Woolwich, and Chatham, the czar left 
England for Vienna, to see the soldiers of the emperor, whose dress and 
discipline were then the model for all Europe. But after an absence of 
seventeen months alarming news called him home. The Strelitz had re- 
belled. Peter, hastening to Moscow, found on his arrival there that hi.s 
faithful Gordon had crushed the revolt. With his own hand the czar be- 
headed twenty of the wretched guards in one hour ; and all Russia heard 
the groans of tortured men. 

Peter's social reforms then began. Dressing himself in a brown frock 
coat, he insisted on all Russians, except the priests and the peasants, cast- 
ing off the long Asiatic national robe. He laid a tax on beards. He 
changed the titles and lessened the power of the aristocracy. Giving 



OF HISTOR r. 



291 



greater freedom to the Russian women, who had previously been shut up 
as in a Turkish harem, he got up for their amusement evening parties, 
lasting from four to ten, at which the Russian gentlemen were required to 
keep strictly sober. Dancing, chess, and draughts were the chief amuse- 
ments of the evening. He checked the arrogant clergy by tolerating all 
sects, except the Jesuits, and giving free circulation to the Sclavonian Bible. 

We now turn to the great rival of the czar, Charles XII. of Sweden. 
Born in 1682, this prince succeeded his father at the age of fifteen (1697). 
Three years later, Russia, Denmark, and Poland, looking across the sea 
with hungry eyes, formed a league for the dismemberment of 
his kingdom. They had yet to learn that the sword was a toy 1700 • 
familiar to the hand of the boy-king, who had loved from A.D. 
his earliest days to play at soldiers. 

Moving swiftly, first upon Denmark, and then upon the Polish army at 
Riga, Charles rid himself of two out of his three foes. And then he 
beat the Russians in the great battle of Narva. 

A Russian force of eighty thousand men, largely officered by Germans, 
was besieging Narva, a small town near the Gulf of Livonia, when 
Charles advanced with only eight thousand troops to its relief. Having 
battered the Russian camp with his cannon, he poured through the breach 
his gallant Swedes, with bayonets fixed. A snow-storm just then 
drove its flakes into the eyes of the Russians, who gave in after Nov, 30j 
three hours of close and desperate fighting. The jealousy 1700 
with which the Russians looked upon their foreign officers, A.D. 
prevented that cordial union which might have saved the 
camp. The Russians lost five thousand men ; the Swedes scarcely 
twelve hundred. Charles let all his thirty thousand prisoners go free, 
except a few of the officers. 

Peter was not at the battle. " Ah," said he, when the vexing news 
came, " These Swedes, I knew, would beat us, but they will soon teach 
ns how to beat them." 

Charles made use of his victory to invade and conquer Poland. Three 
campaigns completed the humiliation of Frederic Augustus, and the 
crown of the deposed monarch was conferred by the conqueror on Stan- 
islaus Leczinski (1704). 

Meanwhile Peter had been straining every nerve to meet the Swedes, 
and have his revenge for Narva. Melting down the church-bells to make 
new cannon, and drilling his soldiers with incessant activity, he prepared 
for a great struggle. Nor amid his warlike preparations was he forgetful 
of social reforms. The building of hospitals, of linen and paper-mills, 
the introduction of a fine breed of Saxon sheep, and the establishment 
of the printing-press were among the many boons which his fertile and 

11 



292 GREAT EVENTS 

untiring spirit gave to Russia. The foundation of St. Petersburg dates 
from this time. 

The czar, filling Lakes Peipus and Ladoga with his ships, worked his 
way steadily northward through Livonia and Ingria, took Marienburg, 
and secured the possession of the Neva. At the mouth of that river, 
upon a swampy island, he built his new capital. While superintending 
the work in person, he lived for a while in a wooden hut. It was no- 
thing to him that the cold and wet and poisonous gas from the marshes 
killed one hundred thousand of his workmen. In spite of all obstacles 
the city rose fair and strong. About the same time Menzikoff, raised 
from selling pies in the street to be the friend and favorite of the czar, 
was employed in founding a very strong fortress on the island of Cron- 
stadt, twenty- one miles down from St. Petersburg. Every succeeding 
czar has strengthened and enlarged the granite batteries of this great 
stronghold. 

On all these doings Charles cast a scornful eye. But he had little 
cause for scorn. The conquest of Ingria, along the southern shore of the 
Gulf of Finland, still further increased the growing power of the czar, 
who made Menzikoff governor of the newly-acquired province, conferring 
upon him at the same time the titles of Field- Marshal and Prince. 

At last Charles turned from his Polish and Saxon wars to invade 
Russia with eighty thousand veteran troops. It was a fatal 
1707 step. "Nowhere but at Moscow will I treat with Peter," said the 
A.D. boastful Swede. " Ah," said rough Peter, " my brother wishes 
to play the part of Alexander — he shall not find a Darius in me." 
The plan adopted by Peter was simple and sensible. Laying waste the 
western provinces, he decoyed Charles into the heart of a hostile, barren 
land, where frost and famine did their deadly work on the Swedish bat- 
talions. The invitation of Mazeppa, hetman of the Cossacks, turned the 
Swedish king from the road to Moscow to the district of the Ukraine. 
But Mazeppa's promises of aid were broken reeds. At last came the time 
for which Peter had planned and longed. "With an army of eighteen 
thousand frost-bitten, ragged, hungry men, Charles besieged the small 
town of Pultowa on the Worskla, an eastern tributary of the Dneiper. 
Peter, coming up with seventy thousand fresh troops, poured reinforce- 
ments into the town. 

And then a great pitched battle was fought. Charles, who was suffering 

from a wound in his foot, was carried in a litter to the field. 

Jane 15, The czar led the centre of his army, intrusting the wings to 

1709 Menzikoff and Bauer. The Swedes fought with desperate 

A.D. valor. More than once they broke the Russian lines ; but at last, 

outnumbered and exhausted, they gave way and fied. In two 



OF HISTORY. 



293 



hours the ruin was complete. The litter in which Charles lay was 
smashed by a round shot ; Peter had a bullet through his hat ; Menzikofl 
had three horses killed under him. The royal Swede rode from the field 
■ivith a few hundred horse, and hid his diminished head within the Turkish 
town of Bender. Nine thousand of his men fell on the bloody field 
From that day Russia, overshadowing all the East with her giant bulk, 
has been one of the great powers of Europe. 

The Turks were not unwilling to draw the sword against a neighbor 
so dangerous as Peter. When Charles, therefore, came among them, a 
beaten man, burning for revenge, they declared war against 
Russia. The czar, marching with forty thousand men to the 1711 
Pruth in Moldavia, was surrounded by a Turkish host of far A.D. 
greater number. For three days the Russians, formed into 
a square, maintained a hopeless contest. Then Peter's young wife, the 
celebrated Catherine Alexina, saved her husband and his troops by send- 
ing a present of her jewels to the Turkish vizier. Peace was proposed, 
the offer was accepted, and a treaty was concluded, greatly to the anger 
of Charles. 

This " Madman of the North," as he has been called not unjustly, wore 
out his welcome in Turkey, and would take no hint about returning to his 
own land. Money was given him to pay his expenses home. He took it, 
spent it, but would not go. He even armed his servants against the 
Turkish janissaries who came to remove him, and killed twenty of them 
with his own sword. Still scheming, and tasking the generosity of the 
Turks, he lived on in a sort of state-custody, .while Peter stripped Sweden 
forever of Ingria, Livonia, and Finland, and the kings of Prussia and 
Denmark laid violent hands on the Swedish dominions south of the 
Baltic. 

Returning in 1714 to Sweden, he spent his last strength in a vain at- 
tempt to conquer Norway, during which he was killed by a cannon-shot, 
that struck Kim in the head, at the siege of Fredericshall (December, 
1718). Military glory was his one absorbing passion. 

In 1716 Peter made a second tour of Europe, visiting Stockholm, 
Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin ; in the last of which Frederic William I., 
who was a kindred spirit, gave him a hearty welcome. Catherine, his 
second wife, who had formerly been married to a sergeant of dragoons, 
accompanied him on this tour. But the news of a plot, in which 
Alexis, his son by the divorced Eudokhia, had some share, recalled him 
to Russia. The unhappy young man was tried for his life, and condemn- 
ed ; but he died mysteriously in prison (17 1 8). 

Peter's last military exploit was an unsuccessful expedition 1722 
to Persia, undertaken on pretence of supporting the rightful A.r>. 



294 



GREAT EVENTS 



Shah against a usurper, but in reality with a view to secure a footing on 
the Caspian shores. 

This greatest of the czars died January 28, 1725, of fever, caught by 
wading knee-deep in Lake Ladoga, to aid in getting off a boat which 
had stuck on the rocks. 

The character of Peter may best be given in the words of Voltaire : 
" He gave a polish to his people, and was himself a savage ; he taught 
them the art of war, of which he was himself ignorant ; from the sight of 
a small boat on the river Moskwa he created a powerful fleet ; he made 
himself an expert and active shipwright, sailor, pilot, and commander ; 
he changed the manners, customs, and laws of the Russians, and lives in 
their memory as the ' Father of his Country.' " In spite of his savagery 
and coarseness, the name " Great" is fairly due to him whose foiesight 
and energy molded a mass of brutal nobles and crouching serfs into the 
great nation of the Russians. 

SOVEREIGNS OF SWEDEN. 

A.D. 

Charles X » 1654 

Charles XI 1660 

Charles XII 1697 

Ulrica Eleanora 1719 

Frederic I. (her husband) 1741 

Adolphus Frederic 1751 

Gustavus Adolphus III 1771 

GusTAvus Adolphus IV 1792 

Charles XIII 1809 

Charles (John) XIV., Bemadotte , 1818 

Oscar 1844 

SOVEREIGNS OP RUSSIA. 

A.D. 

Peter the Great 1689 

Catherine 1 1725 

Peter II 1727 

Anne 1730 

Ivan VI 1740 

Elizabeth 1741 

Peter III 1762 

Catherine II 1762 

Paul 1796 

Alexander 1801 

Nicholas 1825 

Alexander II 1855 



OF HISTORY. 295 

CHAPTER III. 

FREDERIC II. (the GREAT ) OF PRUSSIA. 

Central Point: THE CAMPAiaN OP 1757 A.D. 

Rise of the Prussian kingdom— Early life of Frederic II.— His accession— The Pragmatii 

Sanction— Frederic seizes Silesia— Maria Theresa— The Austrian war— Treaty of Aix-la- 

Chapelle— Eight years of peace— The Seven Years' War begins— Rossbach and Leuthen— 

Liegnitz and Torgau— Peace of Hubertsburg— Partition of Poland— Her unhappy fate— 

- Last acts of Frederic — His death and character — Grood deeds of Maria Theresa. 

While Elizabeth sat on the English throne, the Electors of Branden- 
burg added to their dominions the dukedom of Prussia. Frederic William, 
the " Great Elector," acquired Halberstadt and Minden by the 
treaty of Westphalia. In 1657 the same active prince flung off 1701 
the yoke of Poland ; and some years later, he obtained posses- A.D, 
sion of Magdeburg. So, with gradually widening boundaries, 
Prussia grew to be a kingdom ; the first year of the eighteenth century 
marking the change of the last elector, Frederic III., into the first king, 
Frederic I. 

Third on the list of Prussian kings stands his name — most renowned in 
the royal roll — who forms the subject of this chapter. 

Frederic the Great was born in 1712. His father was Frederic William 
I., and his mother Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. Exposed during child- 
hood and youth to the fury of his savage father, who seems to have cared 
little for any one except the giant guardsmen whom he paid so well, 
young Frederic grew up amid hardships such as princes seldom suffer. He 
learned to love his mother ; but it is not wonderful that he bitterly hated 
his other parent. At last, weary with being kicked, raved at, and fed on 
bread and water, the prince ran away ; and when he was caught, was 
saved from the death of a deserter only by the pleading of the Emperor of 
Austria. 

Having married a German princess in 1733, he spent the six years previ- 
ous to his accession quietly at Rheinsberg — playing billiards, scribbling 
books, and writing letters to Voltaire and other literary friends. The 
opinions of the brilliant French infidel had no small share in molding 
-he character of Frederic. 

The death of old Frederic William in 1740 raised his son to the throne 
of Prussia. At once this son began to realize the darling 
dream of his unhappy boyhood — to be a great soldier. Plenty 1740 
of money, and a fine, well-drilled army, were ready to his A.D. 
hand. He took them, and began a war. 



296 GREAT EVENTS 

Nearly thirty years before, a law, called the " Pragmatic Sanction,"* had 
been passed by the Emperor Charles VI. By this he decreed, that, if he 
left no sons, his dominions should descend to his daughters. One by one 
— in some cases with trouble and delay— the consent of the great European 
powers to this arrangement had been won. And now, upon his death 
(October, 1740), his daughter Maria Theresa became mistress of the heredi- 
tary dominions of the house of Austria. 

At once a rapacious host rose around the hapless princess, greedy to 
despoil her of her realms. Foremost among these was Frederic of Prussia, 
who pounced upon Silesia, claiming it as an old territory of the house of 
Brandenburg. The victories of Mollwitz in 1741, and Czaslau in 1742, 
left him master of the coveted lands. Maria Theresa, dreading this for- 
midable soldier, and anxious to bend all her energies against her other 
foes, made over to him, by the treaty of Breslau, the full sovereignty of 
Silesia and Glatz (June 11, 1742). 

The other foes of Maria Theresa were many ; but chief among them 
were the Elector of Bavaria — made Emperor Charles VII. at Frankfort, in 
February, 1742 — who claimed all the Austrian possessions, and the King 
of France, who helped the elector, in utter contempt of the Pragmatic 
Sanction, which he himself had guaranteed. Her only friend was Eng- 
land. 

It was when the troops of Bavaria and France had advanced in 1741- 
within a few leagues of Vienna, that the princess, fleeing to Presburg, had 
flung herself on the chivalry of the brave Hungarians. When her sor- 
rowful words, spoken in Latin, as she stood in her mourning dress, with 
her little son nestling in her bosom, fell upon their ears : " Abandoned 
by my friends, persecuted by my enemies, and attacked by my nearest 
relations, I have no resource but in your fidelity and valor," the hall grew 
bright with flashing swords ; and " We will die for Maria Theresa ! " 
echoed from its ancient roof. So, with Hungarian steel bristling in her 
defense, and English gold pouring into her coffers, and Frederic, who, as 
we have seen, was bought off by the cession of Silesia, standing aloof, the 
cause of the queen began to prosper. The French, who held Prague, were 
forced to retreat in the depth of a severe winter ; and the emperor, too, 
had to flee. 

But this sudden turn in the tide of war brought Frederic again into 
the field. Fearful that in the flush of victory the Queen of Hungary 

* There are four " Pragmatic Sanctions" in modern history— 1. A law passed by 
Charles VII. of France in 1438, defending the Gallic Church from certain inter- 
ferences of the Pope ; 2. A decree of the German Diet in 1439; 3. That of the Em- 
peror Charles VI., here noticed ; 4. That by which Charles III. of Spain gave up 
Naples to his third son in 1759. 



OF HISTORY. 297 

might wrest the newly-won Silesia from him, he formed a secret alliance 
with France and the emperor. In accordance with this, he invaded Bohe- 
mia in 1744, but was forced to leave it before the end of the year. The 
death of the Emperor Charles VII., which happened early in 1745, re- 
lieved Maria Theresa from a formidable foe, and excited new hopes in 
her breast that her husband, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, might be elect- 
ed to fill the vacant imperial throne. These hopes were realized, in spite 
of all that the great house of Bourbon could do ; and Francis I. became 
emperor. Frederic, though victorious in the campaign of I745i was glad 
to sheath the sword ; and, by the treaty of Dresden, which closed the 
war in Germany, he acknowledged the husband of Maria Theresa as head 
of the empire. 

During this war, in which England and France took opposite sides, 
were fought the battles of Dettingen (1743) and Fontenoy (1745). After 
the peace of Dresden, the struggle was continued in the Netherlands and 
Italy between the houses of Bourbon and Austria, until a peace 
concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle gave rest for a while to worn- Oct. 7, 
out Europe. This treaty confirmed in genei-al the arrangements 1748 
made by those of Westphalia, Nimeguen, Ryswick, and A.D. 
Utrecht ; secured the possession of Silesia and Glatz to Prus- 
sia ; and made over to Don Philip of Spain, under certain conditions, 
Naples, Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla. 

Eight years of peace followed. This breathing-space was devoted by 
Frederic to the good of Prussia. He drew up the Frederician code of 
laws. He travelled through many parts of his kingdom, doing what he 
could for tillage, trade, and manufactures. He built palaces in Berlin and 
Potsdam ; and he spent much time, pen in hand, writing books in French. 
Of these works the most considerable are his " Memoirs of the House of 
Brandenburg," and his poem on the " Art of War." But he never forgot 
that he was a soldier. A large slice of his revenue went to maintain his 
army, which he had lately raised to one hundred and sixty thousand men. 
These soldiers, officered with care and drilled incessantly, were lodged 
in barracks enriched with the most costly and beautiful ornaments of 
architecture. 

Both in India and America the interests of France and England had 
long been clashing. Open war was at last declared. Already blood had 
been spilled in the colonies ; but it was not until 1756 that the German 
King of England, trembling for the safety of his beloved Hanover, formed 
an alliance with Frederic of Prussia, and prepared for a stern struggle. 
The great powers of Europe ranged themselves on one side or other. 
Austria, glad to see the tie between France and Prussia at last broken, 
took arms in the hope of recovering the lost Silesia. Thus Ausiria, 



298 GREA T E VENTS 

France, Russia, Saxony Sweden, and Poland, were arrayvid against Prus« 
sia and England ; and che great Seven Years' War began. 

The colonial war between France and England, which interweaves 
itself with the Seven Years' War, lies beyond our scope. We shall trace 
the story of the war as it affected Continental Europe only ; and to 
make the sketch clearer, we shall follow the order of the seven cam- 
paigns. 

Frederic began the war. At the head of seventy thousand men, he in- 
vaded Saxony, moving his troops by converging roads towards 

Sept. Dresden, the great centre of attack. He defeated the Aus- 

1756 trians at Lowositz. Then, seizing the archives of Dresden, and 
A.D. smashing the cabinet in which the state papers were kept, he 

read the whole story of the secret plot laid for the partition of 
Prussia. These papers he published, in order to defend the step he had taken. 

The second campaign — greatest of the seven — began with the invasion 
of Bohemia by Frederic and his Prussians. Near Prague he won a great 
battle over the Austrians, and then besieged the city. But the advance 
of the Austrian Marshal Daun, whose intrenched camp at Kolin was the 
scene of Frederic's first great defeat, saved the Bohemian capital. A 
thunder-shower of misfortunes then seemed to burst over the head of the 
Prussian king. The house of Brandenburg tottered to its lowest stone — 
Russians breaking through his eastern frontier, Swedes in Pomerania 
marching on Berlin, his friends the English driven in disgrace from 
Hanover by the French, who were rapidly advancing into Saxony. In 
the midst of all, his mother died. He loved her well, and in his utter 
despair suicide seemed his only refuge from a crowd of miseries. Then 
came the turn of the tide. The Russian empress took ill, and her troops 
were recalled. This was one foe less. Dashing suddenly into Saxony, 
with only twenty thousand men, he faced a French and Austrian army, 
twice the size of his own, at the village of Rossbach. 

About eleven o'clock in the morning of a winter day, the massive lines 
of the allied armies advanced in battle array, exulting in their 

Not, 5j strength, and sure of victory. Frederic, seeming not to stir, 

1757 silently moved his troops into a new position. Their march 
A.D. was concealed by the broken ground ; and when, later in the 

day, the allies moved to the attack, they were met and broken 
into huddled crowds by an avalanche of horses, men, and cannon-shot, 
pouring with terrific speed and force upon their lines, already disordered 
by the hurry of their advance. In half an hour the fate of the day was 
decided. While Frederic lost only a few hundred men, nearly nine thou- 
sand of the foe were killed, wounded, or made prisoners. 

Just a month later (December 5) Frederic defeated the Austrians in 



OF HISTORY. 



299 



the great battle of Leuthen, or Lissa, in Silesia. His tactics were here 
the same as at Rossbach. Feigning to attack their right wing, he sud- 
denly concentrated a great force, which he had quietly mustered behind 
the hills, upon their weakened left, and swept it before him. Instead of 
returning the move, the Austrian general moved the right wing up to 
support the broken left. But he was too late ; and the whole Austrian 
torce was driven from the field, in spite of their gallant stand, maintained 
for a full hour among the houses of Leuthen. The action lasted from 
one to four in the day. The Austrians lost in killed and wounded twelve 
thousand men ; the Prussian loss was at least five thousand. The imme- 
diate results of the victory were the re-capture of Silesia, which had been 
overrun by the Austrians, and the exaltation of Frederic to the greatest 
fame. London was a blaze of illumination in his honor, and the English 
Parliament voted him ;^70o,ooo a year. 

Early in the third campaign, an army of English and Hanoverians, 
under the Duke of Brunswick, drove the French back across the Rhine. 
Later in the year, Frederic inflicted a terrible defeat upon the 
Russians at Zorndorff, in Brandenburg. From nine in the Aug", 25» 
morning till seven in the evening, the Russians, formed into a 1758 
square, held their ground under incessant discharges of artillery, a.d, 
followed by rapid charges of horse and foot. Twenty-one 
thousand Russians lay slain on this fatal field. Still later in the season, 
Count Daun, the leader of the Austrians, broke the right wing of Frederic's 
■ army at Hochldrchen, in Saxony ; but on the whole the cause of the Prus- 
sian king was triumphant in the campaign. He still held Silesia ; and the 
French had been driven from Germany. 

Blow after blow fell heavily on Frederic in the fourth year of the war. 
It is true that his ally, Ferdinand of Brunswick, defeated the French in 
the battle of Minden (August i), thus saving the Electorate of 
Hanover from a second conquest. But the Prussian king him- Aug". 12, 
self, meeting the Russians at Kunersdorf, in Brandenburg, 1759 
was driven from the field with the loss of eighteen thousand A.D. 
men. Dresden was taken and held by the Austrians. An 
army of nearly twenty thousand Prussians, hemmed in by Austrian bayo- 
nets among the passes of Bohemia, was forced to surrender at discretion 
to Marshal Daun. 

After some vain attempts at negotiations, the war continued with increased 
bitterness. Frederic was desperate. He stood at bay amid a gi- 
gantic host of two hundred thousand men; and all his efforts 1760 
could not muster half that number. Yet with these he was victo- A.D. 
rious, gaining strength from the very hopelessness of his cause. 
The defeat of his general Fouque, in Silesia, roused him to action. Draw- 

11* 



300 



GREAT EVENTS 



mg off Daun by a pretended march into Silesia, he turned suddenly upon 
Dresden. For many days a storm of cannon-shot poured upon the city, 
crumbling some of its finest buildings into dust. But the return of Daun, 
rt'ho quickly perceived the false move he had made, obliged Frederic to 
abandon the siege. Yet he soon made up for this temporary check. 

By his victory over Laudohn at Liegnitz, when three Austrian generals 
lay round his camp, sure now that they had the lion in their toils, he pre- 
vented the union of the Russian and Austrian forces. Then, enraged by 
the pillage of Berlin, into which the Russians and Austrians had made 
a hasty dash, he followed up his success by an attack upon the camp oi 
Daun, who had intrenched himself strongly at Torgau, on the Elbe. Bro- 
ken three times by the fire of two hundred Austrian cannon, the Pruesian 
troops struggled bravely up to the batteries, took them, and drove the de- 
fenders in disorder across the river. Darkness alone saved the Austrians 
from annihilation. The immediate result of this great victory was the 
recovery by Frederic of all Saxony except Dresden. And, stricken with 
sudden fear, his enemies all shrank away from Prussia. This year is also 
marked by the formation of a secret treaty, called the Family Compact, 
formed between the Bourbons of France and Spain. 

The war dragged on through its sixth campaign. The King of Prussia, 
thoroughly exhausted by his enormous efforts, remained in a strong camp 
in the heart of Silesia, watching his foes, but able to do no more. Again, 
we are told, the thought of suicide crossed his mind. 

A death saved him. Elizabeth of Russia died on the 5th of January, 

1762, and her successor, Peter III., Frederic's warm admirer 

Feb* and friend, not only made peace, but sent him aid. The exam- 

1763 pie set by Russia was followed by Sweden. Then came the 

A.D. Peace of Paris, concluded by England, France, and Spain. Thus 

Austria and Prussia fronted each other alone, and they, too, 

signed the peace of Hubertsburg, which left the face of Germany on the 

whole unchanged. 

Frederic still held the small province of Silesia, for the sake of which 
the life-blood of more than a million had been poured out like water. 
And so ended the great Seven Years' War, of which the Prussian king was 
the central figure, and in which he won imperishable renown as a gallant 
soldier and a daring tactician. 

Frederic then set himself to repair the terrible mischief done by the 
war. He gave corn for food and seed to the starving people, and re- 
built the houses that had been burnt. Silesia was freed from the pay- 
ment of all taxes for six years, and other districts received the same boon 
for a shorter time. Rewards to his living soldiers, and pensions to the 
widows and children of the dead, were bestowed with no niggard hand. 



OF HISTORY, 301 

In his attempts to revive the drooping commerce and increase the revenue 
of Prussia, he made some sad mistakes, of which, perhaps, the worst wag 
the debasement of tlie coin. Great as he was in military affairs, he was 
no political economist. And amid all his plans and works of peace, he 
maintained a great army of one hundred and sixty thousand men. 

Frederic's share in the great crime of the eighteenth century must now 
be noticed. It is said that the wicked plot was hatched in the fertile 
brain of this great Prussian king ; but there is reason to think that it was 
an old design, dating so far back as 1710, in the days of Frederic I. A 
kingdom, " the eldest born of the European family," bright with fair fields, 
broad rivers, and a genial sky, and filled with a valiant but very restless 
people, lay overshadowed by three giants. The curse of discord filled 
the land with blood and tears and failing strength. When great assem- 
blies of her armed knights met to elect their king or transact other state 
business, they often returned home without having passed a single act, 
paralyzed by the strange power of a veto, which they all possessed, and by 
which a single man could dissolve the assembly. 

Poland was the unhappy land. Around her stood Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia, who, seeing her weakness and her broken heart, stooped 
together and with felon hands tore away one-third of her do- 1772 
minion. Frederic thus gained Polish-Prussia as far as the A.D. 
Netz, except Dantzic and Thorn. Catherine II., of Russia, 
and Maria Theresa, whose conscience stung her sorely before she joined 
in the robbery, had each a share of the unrighteous .spoil. Stanislaus II. 
was then King of Poland. 

Twenty-two years later, there was a great uprising of the brave Poles 
under Kosciusko. But might was stronger than right. Stanislaus resigned 
his crown ; and the second and final partition of Poland took place (1795) 
And in 1832, while Britain was dreaming of Parliamentary Reform, and 
France was still throbbing with the pangs of her second Revolution, the old 
kingdom of Poland was swept from the map of Europe by a ukase of 
Nicholas, the Russian czar. 

In 1778 the emperor formed a design of partitioning Bavaria. But 
here Frederic interfered on the weaker side ; and by the Peace of Teschen 
the evil was averted. Another attempt on Bavaria was thwarted by the 
" Fursfenbund," an alliance among the German princes, which was con- 
cluded chiefly at the instance of Frederic. His last gi'eat public act was 
the conclusion of a commercial treaty with the United States of America, 
in 1786. 

Gout and asthma, ending in dropsy, brought Frederic to his Aug. 17) 
death bed, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He had reigned 1786 
nearly forty-seven years. He was a great soldier, of daring A.D. 



302 



GREAT EVENTS 



courage in battle, of quick and fertile genius in difficulty, of most elastic 
spirit in the hour of depression and dismay. But, like all mea of inordi 
nate ambition, he cared nothing for the feelings of others. Blood he 
shed in torrents, yet the " red rain" seemed never to cost him a thought. 
When it is added that he was a hater of women and a scoffer at religion, 
we can see that Frederic, with all his brilliancy of fame, was not a lovable 
man. 

The name of Maria Theresa has often occurred in the story of Freder 
ic's reign. When her husband, Francis I., died in 1763, her son Joseph 
was raised to the imperial throne. Still holding the reins of power, she 
continued to rule until 1780, when death cut short her course of useful- 
ness. Among the benefits which she gave to her subjects, the checking 
of the Inquisition and the suppression of the Jesuits were not the least. 
There are few names more honored in the long roll of illustrious women 
than the name of this Empress Queen, upon whose fair fame there rests 
hut one blot — her unwilling part in the division of Poland. 

DUEES AND KINGS OF PRUSSIA. 

DtTKES. 

A.D. 

John Sigismund 1616 

George William 1619 

Frederic William (the Great Elector) 1640 

Frederic. t688 

KINGS. 

Crowned King as Frederic 1 1701 

Frederic William 1 1713 

Frederic II. (the Great) 174° 

Frederic William II 1786 

Frederic William III 1797 

Frederic William IV 1S40 



OF HISTORY. 303 



CHAPTER IV. 

LIFE IN FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV, 

The noblesse hombled — The soldiers — Sale of offices— The Eoturier — The Gabelle— The rich 
lords — View of the Court— Shifts to raise money— Vanity of Lonis — His expensive life — 
Palace at Versailles — Dress of the time— Brilliant writers— Influence of ladies— Duel- 
ling. 

It was the great aim of Louis XIV. to centralize all power in himself. 
He, therefore, lost no opportunity of humbling the French noblesse. Se- 
lecting his chief ministers from the plebeian ranks, he drove many of the 
lower and poorer nobles, who found their chance of making a name and 
living by politics gone, to become merchants and shopkeepers. He 
whose pride could not stoop to such a fall, took mask and pistol and 
turned chevalier cTindusirie, or what we in plain English call a highway 
robber. But the army was the grand refuge for the cadets of noble 
houses, and to this they flocked in spite of the humiliations which awaited 
them there. The army then became the true aristocracy ; and the haugh- 
tiest duke in the realm, v/ho could count back his ancestors for centuries, 
had to give place to the youngest marechal of France. 

This army was the grand instrument of Louis' despotism. There was 
no disputing his will, for the soldiers were always at hand. They had 
been trained and drilled from early boyhood according to the military 
system of Gustavus Adolphus. For the first time French soldiers were 
armed, clothed, and accoutred on a uniform plan, regulated by the king. 
From him alone could promotion come ; his royal hand signed every 
commission. To him they were taught to look for every command and 
every reward. All the glory they won was for him. While they were 
young and strong, he drilled tliem, petted them, and made them the great 
men of France ; and when their beards grew gray, or they left a limb on 
some bloody field, the splendid Hotel des Invalides stood ready to re- 
ceive them in their decay. 

The French police system was founded by Louis, who found the need 
of spreading his spies into every corner of the land. Nothing could hap- 
pen by the meanest hearth without the knowledge of the police, who sent 
up constant reports to head-quarters. The Church lands and livings were 
often given by this despot to laymen ; and many a rich abbey had for its 
owner some fair favorite of the king or his chief courtiers. Unblushingly 
and most openly the public offices were sold — sometimes even put up to 
auction. At Rennes, for example, within fourteen years the king sold, 
besides all the seats in the Civic Tribunal, twenty-seven other posts, tak 
ing money even for the appointment of a house-porter. 



304 



GREAT EVENTS 



The tiers eiat, or lower orders, groaned under fearful burdens and led 
a very wretched life. It was this evil which grew into the tornado of 
revolution a hundred years later. The roiurier, or ignoble vassal, owed 
to the king, as his seigneur, eight very heavy duties. One of these, called 
corvee, was the obligation to work on the public roads for a certain num- 
ber of days every year. There was a capitation tax, too, imposed by 
Louis XIV., which fell most heavily on the roturiers. 

But of all imposts, that which excited the greatest bitterness of spirit 
was the gabelle, or salt tax. In the fourteenth century the trade in this 
necessary of life began to be made a royal monopoly. Four times a year 
every householder was obliged, whether he would or not, to buy as much 
salt as was determined by the authorities to be needful for the use of his 
family. The natural result of such oppression was to demoralize the 
lower orders. Smuggling became a common trade ; and the passion for 
it grew so strong, that whole cavalry regiments deserted in order to follow 
the dishonest occupation. 

But the king and his court cared little for this miserable state of the 
tiers etat. Their business was to enjoy life as brilliantly as possible. The 
humiliation of the poorer nobles has been already noticed. That of the 
rich seignetirs was yet more degrading, because it was voluntary. The 
court was an irresistible magnet, which drew them from their chateaux 
among the woods of Auvergne, Bretagne, and Provence. They plunged 
into the whirlpool of fashion and folly, and were fooled to the top of 
their bent. Gambling was carried on to a most incredible extent. It was 
thought no shame, but the best fun in the world, to cheat at cards. Royal 
dukes did it, and were esteemed for their gentlemanly skill in swindling ; 
why, then, should not men and women of meaner station trick and lie. 

Faithful husbands and wives were held up to open mockery in the 
theatre of the time ; and, therefore, husbands and wives who loved each 
other and were true became scarce at the French court. The king set an 
example of unfaithfulness to his queen, which his train were not slow to 
follow. Life was a constant round of dressing, driving, gambling, and 
licentiousness ; to pay the heavy cost of which, all over France ancestral 
trees were cut down, fair acres were loaded with debt or brought to the 
hammer, and the poor tenantry were squeezed dry, left hopeless and heart- 
broken. The young nobles, finding common society to pall upon their de- 
praved taste, invited to their tables forgers and highwaymen, whose anec 
dotes — highly flavored with crime — delighted them immensely. Then, tc 
get money, the meanest and most cruel things were done. Among such 
expedients, the raking up of forgotten penalties and unclaimed forfeitures 
was adopted by crowds of needy lords and ladies, who hunted all the 
counti-y over in search of victims 



OF HISTORY. 305 

The central figure of the brilliant, giddy, wicked throng, was, of course, 
the absurdly affected little man who wore the crown, and believed in his 
heart that he was in reality Louis le Gravid. His strut and swagger were 
copied on every side, and the most outrageous flattery was poured upon 
him. One gravely called him " a visible miracle." A lady writing of 
him said, " That even while playing at billiards he preserved the air and 
deportment of the master of the world." This and much more he re- 
ceived merely as his due, for his vanity was inordinate. We read of him 
singing the hymns written in his praise by some flattering lyrist, and weep- 
ing with delight at the sound of his own sweet voice and the thoughts of 
his darling self. 

Louis' expenditure was on a most extravagant scale. His wars cost the 
country enormous sums, and his home-life was scarcely less expensive. 
We find him in 1670 on his way to the theatre of war in the Low Coun- 
tries, travelling in a glass coach. Rich furniture was sent on before him, 
so that when he stopped he might be lodged in royal style. Every night 
there was a fete, or masked ball, with a grand display of fireworks. It 
s'eemed as if he could not live a M'eek without these splendors. 

His palace of Versailles swallowed up incalculable livres. The little hunt- 
ing-lodge of Louis XIII. could not hold le Grand Monarque, who called 
his architects and gardeners together, and set them to work upon a mansion 
worthy of his splendor. The principal feature of the huge building, 
which cost sixteen millions sterling, is its cold, monotonous formality. 
Magnificent, but not beautiful, it has been well called a type of the age . 
that produced it. The age was intensely artificial ; and in the far-stretch- 
ing Ionic colonades, — the closely-shaven lawns, — the symmetrical ter- 
races and wide, straight walks which divide the trim parterres, — the lakes, 
cascades, and fountains, resembling anything but Nature, — the even rows 
of stately elm-trees which border the avenues, and the mathematically cor- 
rect lines of the palace itself, the artificial seems to have reached its per- 
fection. Statues and vases in great profusion adorn both palace and 
gardens. 

The dress of Louis may be taken as a specimen of the national cos- 
tume of the time. A great periwig, full of powder, rose high above his 
forehead, and flowed in floury ringlets on his shoulders and back. Round 
his neck was a lace cravat, with embroidered ends hanging on the breast. 
Puffed cambric sleeves with hanging rufiles at the wrist, came out from 
below the large, wide cuffs of his coat, which was broad-skirted and of vel- 
vet. A long waistcoat of rich brocade fell half-way down over his knee- 
breeches of satin. Tightly fitting silk stockings, and high shoes with 
silver buckles and red heels, completed his dross. A gold-headed cane 
a diamond-hiked srnall-sword, and a jewelled snuff-box were essentia^ 



3o6 GREAT EVENTS 

parts of a fine gentleman's equipment. The little three-cornered cocked 
hat was seldom perched on the top of the wig, but was generally carried 
under the arm. The ladies carried fans, wore curls, powder, and neck- 
laces, and contrived to spend at least as much time and money on tlieir 
dress as did their be-wigged and snuff-box-tapping admirers. 

The great brilliance of the court of Louis XIV. was owing to the clus- 
ter of wits and literary men whom he gathered round him. Corneille 
and Racine, the tragedians ; Moliere and Regnard, the comedians ; 
Boileau and La Fontaine, the poets ; La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere, 
the wits ; Des Cartes and Pascal, the philosophers ; Bossuet and Arnauld, 
the divines ; Mabillon and Montfaucon, the scholars ; Bourdaloue and 
Massillon, the preachers ; — all gave lustre to his reign. With such men 
he lived in close intimacy ; and thus, too, he struck a blow at the old 
noblesse, for this aristocracy of talent, of which he made so much, was 
drawn almost altogether from the ranks of the people. The writings of 
these great stars of French literature bear the stamp of the age. They 
are highly polished and have a stately grace ; but they were written by 
men who breathed an atmosphere of splendid artificiality ; and they 
lack, in consequence, " that touch of Nature which makes the whole 
world kin." They were not written for the whole world, but for the 
favored few who wore ruffles and brocade. Dryden and Pope, who got 
their inspiration from Paris, are the best examples in our own literature 
of a similar style. 

The influence of the French ladies upon the political changes of the 
nation, was an important feature of the age. The ascendency which such 
favorites as Montespan and Maintenon gained over the mind of Louis, 
caused them to be courted by all applicants for royal favor ; and in that 
age of king-worship, who did not look eagerly for the sunshine of the 
royal countenance ? The boudoir usurped the functions of the cabinet ; 
grave secrets of state were revealed, and weighty strokes of policy dis 
cussed beneath silken curtains, amid guitars, and flowers, and tambour- 
work. 

The duel, unhappily, still prevailed to a great extent in France, though 
the evil had certainly grown less. At one time, soon after the well-known 
cartel of defiance which Francis I. had sent to the Emperor Charles V., 
duels were alarmingly common. A word or a look often cost a life ; and 
the loss to the country was as great almost as the drain of a bloody war. 
Under Louis XIV., the code of honor, as it was called, was very formally 
laid down and punctiliously observed ; and the cold stateliness of the pro- 
ceedings had the good effect of cooling down the fierce brutality which 
had often marked earlier duels. But still the French gentlemen, with all 
their frippery, were high-spirited and brave ; even the ice of Louis' cere- 



OF HISTORY. 307 

momals could not freeze their valor ; the hot blood would often boil up, 
and the diamond-hilted swords grow red. 



GREAT NAMES OF THE EIGHTH PERIOD. 

MOLIERE (assumed name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin), born at Pans, 
January 15, 1622 — a distinguished French dramatist — also an actor — 
his first play, " L'Etourdi" produced in 1653 — among his many works 
" Le Misanthrope," " Le Tartuffe," " Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," 
may be named — died February 17, 1673. 

John Milton, bom December 9, 1608, in Bread Street, London — greatest 
modern epic poet — Latin secretary under Cromwell — chief works, 
" Paradise Lost," and " Paradise Regained" — chief minor poems, 
" L' Allegro," " II Penseroso," " Comus," and " Lycidas" — chief prose 
works, " History of England," and the " Areopagitica," a plea for the 
liberty of the press — died November 8, 1674. 

De La Barca Calderon, bom of noble parents at Madrid, 1601 — a 
great Spanish dramatist — wrote about 500 pieces — like Lope, a sol- 
dier in youth — entered the Church at the age of 50 — then devoted 
his pen to writing " Autos Sacramentales," or sacred plays (Uke our 
Early Mysteries) — died in 168 1, aged 80. 

Pierre Corneille, born 1606, at Rouen — son of an advocate — a great 
French dramatist — made his fame by his tragedy of the " Cid "— 
other great works " Horace" and " Cinna," produced in 1639 — his 
comedies are not first-rate — died in 1684, aged 78. 

Jean La Fontaine, born in 1621, at Ch&teau-Thierry — a French poet- 
lived a quiet, lazy life in patrons' houses — chief work, his " Fables," 
chiefly selected from ^sop — died in 1695 — succeeded Colbert as a 
member of the French Academy. 

Jean Racine, born in 1639, at Ferte Milon, in Aisne — a French dramatic 
poet — his first tragedy, " La Thebaide," brought out in 1664 — 
" PhSdre" is considered his masterpiece — " Athalie" was his last 
play — wrote also historical fragments — died April 21, 1697, aged 59. 

John Dryden, bom August 9, 1631, at Aldwinckle, in Northamptonshire 
— educated at Trinity College, Cambridge — poet-laureate in 1670 — 
chief works, a satire called " Absalom and Achitophel," an " Ode on 
St. Cecilia's Day," and a translation of the ^neid — died May i, 
1700, aged 69. 

John Locke, born at Wrington, near Bristol, August 29, 1632 — educated 
at Westminster School and Oxford — the great mental philosopher of 
his time — great work, his " Essay on the Human Understanding" — ' 
died October 28, 1704, aged 73. 



308 >GREAT EVENTS 

Jacques Benigne Bossuet, bom at Dijon, September 27, 1627 — conse- 
crated Bishop of Meaux in 168 1 — one of the greatest pulpit orators 
of France — died at Paris, April 12, 1704, aged 76. 

Nicolas Boileau, born in Paris, November i, 1636 — a noted French 
poet, remarkable for the moral tone of his writings — chief works, his 
" Satires" and " Epistles," and the " Lutrin," a mock heroic — died 
March 13, 1711, aged 74 — a member of the Academy. 

Francois Fenelon, born at Perigord, in 1651 — Archbishop of Cambray— 
one of the sect called Quietists — denounced as a heretic by Bossuet 
— best known work, the romance " Telemaque" — died January 7, 
1715. 

Joseph Addison, born near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, May i, 1672 — edu- 
cated at Oxford — much engaged in politics under Anne and George I. 
— famous for his prose papers in the Spectator — wrote also " Cato, a 
tragedy," a " Letter from Italy," and other poems — died June 17, 
1 7 19, aged 47. 

Isaac Newton, bom at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, December 25, 1642 
—professor of mathematics at Cambridge — discoverer of the law of 
universal gravitation — remarkable also for his optical discoveries — 
chief work, " Principia," a Latin treatise on natural philosophy — 
wrote also on Daniel and Revelation — died at Kensington, March 20, 
1727, aged 85. 

Charles Rollin, bom at Paris, January 30, 1661 — professor of rhetoric at 
Plessis — chief work, his " Belles Lettres" and " Ancient History" — 
died 14th September, 1741, aged 80. 

Jean Baptiste Massillon, bom at Hiferes, in Provence, 24th June, 1663 
— the greatest of the French preachers — made Bishop of Clermont 
in 1717 — died of apoplexy, i8th September, 1742, aged 79. 

Alexander Pope, born in London, May 22, 1688 — son of a linen-draper 
— chief works, the " Dunciad," the " Essay on Criticism," the "Rape 
of the Lock," a mock heroic poem, and his translation of Homer's 
Iliad — died May 30, 1744, aged 56. 

Alain-Rene Le Sage, born May 8, 1668, at Sarzeau, in Morbihan— wrote 
many plays — translated much from the Spanish — best-known work, 
his novel, "Gil Bias de Santillane," published between 1710 and 
1735 — died at Boulogne, November 17, T747, aged 80. 

Charles Montesquieu, born near Bordeaux, January 18, 1689 — a president 
in the Parliament of that city — chief works, " Lettres Persanes," 
" Esprit des Lois," and a classic romance, " Temple du Guide" — died 
February, 1755, aged 66. 

George Frederick Handel, born at Halle, in Saxony, February 24, 1684 
— a great musician — came to London in 17 10 — composer of many 



OF HISTORY. 



309 



grand oratorios, among which may be named " Saul," "The Messiah," 
and "Samson" — died April 13, 1759, aged 75. 

Francois-Marie Voltaire, born at Chatenay, near Sceaux, February 20, 
1694 — author of the " Henriade," the only French epic poem. Among 
his historical works are the " Age of Louis XIV.," " History of Charles 
XII.," and " History of Russia" — wrote numerous plays and minor 
poems — lived his last twenty years at Ferney, in Ain — an enemy of 
the Christian faith — died 30th May, 1778, aged 84. 

Carl Linn^us, born at Rashult, in Sweden, May 13, 1707 — a great bot- 
anist — professor of botany and medicine at Upsal — author of many 
works — died January 10, 1778, aged 71. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau, born at Geneva in 1712 — son of a watchmaker 
— a skeptic in religious matters — author of many operas, and elo- 
quent literary works — obliged to leave France on the publication of 
his " Contrat Social," an essay which maintains the equal rights of all 
men — died July, 1778, aged 66. 

Pietro Metastasio. born at Rome, January 6, 1698 — a distinguished 
poet — made imperial laureate at Vienna, about 1729 — among his 
sacred dramas may be named " La Passione," " La Morte d'Abel," and 
" Isacco" — died April 12, 1782, aged 84. 

George, Comte De Buffon, born at Montbard, in Burgundy, September 
7, 1707 — a great naturalist — chief work, his "Histoire Naturelle" — 
died April 16, 1788, aged 81. 



NINTH PERIOD. 

PROM THE BE&INNING OF THE TRENCH REVOLUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Central Point: LOUIS XVI. GUILLOTINED, January 21, 1793 A.D. 

ftajuse under Louis XV. — Accession of Louis XVI. — His ministers — Meeting of the Notables- 
Recall of Necker— The States-General — Tiers Etat — The National Assembly — Storming of 
the Bastile — March of women to Versailles— Events of 1790— Death of Mirabean — The 
Legislative Assembly — The three parties — A foreign war threatening — Sack of the Tniler- 
ies — Battle of Jemappes — The National Convention — Trial and death of Louis — The 
Reign of Terror— Christianity abolished — La Vendee and Toulon — Murders on the Loire — 
Pate of Robespierre— The new constitution— 13th Vendemiaire. 

When, in 1723, Orleans and Dubois sank within a few months of each 
other into the grave, Louis XV. was a boy of fourteen. Three years later 
began the administration of Cardinal Fleury, tutor to the king, which, 
lasting for seventeen years (1726-43), marks the best period of a shame- 
ful reign. Then, when Fleury died, France went rapidly down the hill. 
The court, ruled by the painted favorites of the licentious king. Pompa- 
dour and Dubarry, exhausted every shape of costly debauchery. The 
last sou of taxation was wrung from the starving peasants. The soldiers 
of France were beaten at Dettingen, at Rossbach, and at Minden. 
Canada, Nova Scotia, and some of the iinest of the Antilles were 
wrested from Louis by the English. The health of the public mind was 
sapped by the infidelities of Voltaire and the mock sentimentalism of 
Rousseau. 

Bitter, indeed, must have been the fading days of the worn-out volup- 
tuary, as he sank from his throne into a dishonored grave. Looking on 
to the future he was not to see, no wonder that he sighed out to his 
courtiers the terrible truth, " Apres moi le deluge." 

Louis XVI. succeeded his grandfather on the loth of May, 1774. Then 
twenty years of age, he had been already four years married to Marie 
Antoinette, the beautiful daughter of Maria Theresa. The young couple 
entered with the fresh joy of their years into the gayeties of the coronation 
and all high-born France rang with the noise of feasting. But in every 



OF HISTORY. 



3" 



square mile of the land there were men whose wives and children cried to 
them in vain for bread. 

Louis XV. had left a debt of four thousand millions of livres. It was a 
gigantic task — an unsolvable problem — to support an expensive court and 
government under this enormous pressure. Old Maurepas, the first prime 
minister of Louis XVI., tried tt and failed. Turgot, a clever disciple of 
Voltaire and Diderot, failed too. The lawyer Malesherbes had to give 
place to Necker, a banker of Geneva, who reformed the taxation and 
restored public credit during his five years' tenure of office (1776-81). 
Then Calonne took the purse from Necker, who was dismissed by a court 
cabal ; and never was seen such a financier. 

When the king or queen wanted money to meet a jeweller's bill, or pay 
the expenses of a ball, or what purpose you please, this smiling, witty 
minister never refused to honor the demand. His plan was a simple one, 
but by no means a new invention. We meet Calonnes every day of our 
lives. He borrowed on every side, without one thought of repayment- 
For a time this lasted. But the day came when even Calonne 
could not fill the royal treasury, and some new plan must be 1787 
devised to make both ends meet, and stave off clamorous cred- a.d. 
itors ; and the expedient adopted in this difficulty was the 
assembling of the Notables — the chief nobles and magistrates — gathered 
from all parts of France, who met at Versailles. Calonne wanted to 
make up for the deficiency of revenue by a land-tax, but his proposal was 
rejected by these lords of the soil. They suggested other plans, which 
were adopted by the king. 

Then came the dismissal of Calonne, who was soon succeeded by 
Brienne, Archbishop of Toulon. But Brienne could do nothing to stem 
the rising tide, and Necker was recalled in 1 788. There were then only 
two hundred and fifty thousand francs in the royal treasury. 

Necker yielded to the cry for a meeting of the States-General — an assem- 
bly not unlike our English Parliament. There had been no such thing 
since the days of Richelieu. It was a sign that the day for despotism in 
France was, for a time at least, nearly over. 

All over France the elections went on, and no man who wore a good coat 
was refused leave to vote. Three millions of the people sent up their dep- 
uties — lawyers, doctors, priests, farmers, writers for the press— to the great 
States-General, in which, for the first time during nearly two hundred 
years, the down-trodden " tiers elaf was to sit in council with 
the nobles and the high clergy. After hearing a sermon in May 5j 
Notre Dame, they met in a great hall at Versailles. Here a 1789 
difficulty arose. The deputies of the tiers etat would not sub- A.D. 
mit to be separated from the other houses. Sitting in their 



3 1 2 GREA T E VENTS 

own chamber, they asked the coronets and mitres to join them ; and, when 
the invitation was rejected in scorn, they formed themselves into the 
National Assembly. 

The king, foi-getting the lesjon he might have learned when, in early 
days, he read the History of England with Fleury, stationed soldiers at 
the door of the hall to keep out the members of Assembly. This was the 
fatal move. Bailly, then president, led them to the yeu de 
June 20. Paume (Tennis Court), where they swore a solemn oath not 
to dissolve their Assembly until they had framed a constitution 
for France. Then the mitres and some of the coronets began to flock 
into the Assembly hall. Among the latter sat the Duke of Orleans, in- 
famously known as Philip Egalit^ — a name he took to please the mob — and 
the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American war. But greatest of the 
throng in fiery eloquence and political genius was the ugly debauchee, 
Honore Gabriel, Comte de Mirabeau, who sat as deputy for the town of 
Aix. Robespierre, too — the sea-green, as Carlyle loves to call him — whose 
pinched face, deeply pitted with the small-pox, was soon to be the guiding- 
star of the Jacobins, had already, in thin, cracked voice, made his maiden 
speech. 

At last, after many muttered warnings, and long gathering darkness, the 
tempest broke in awful fury. A fierce mob, whose souls were leavened 
with infidelity, and brutalized by changeless misery and never-satisfied 
nunger, raged through Paris streets. The spark which fired the mine 
was a nimor that the soldiers were marching to dissolve the Assembly. 
Necker, too, the sole hope of the starving people, had been dismissed. 
Cockades of green leaves, torn from the trees, became the badge of the 
rioters. Shots were heard in many quarters. An old man was killed by 
a bullet from the German Guards. 

Then the grim old prison of the Bastile was stormed. Within its dark 
walls hundreds of innocent hearts had broken, pierced through with the 
iron of hopeless captivity. The terrible lettres de cachet — sealed orders 
from the king to arrest and fling into prison without a trial, and often 
without any distinct charge — had packed its dungeons with 
July 14. wretched men during the late reign. Little wonder, then, 
that the first rush of the mob was to the Bastile. Dragging 
cannon from Les Invalides, they opened a fire upon the walls, burst in, and, 
seizing the governor, slew him in the Place de Grfeve. 

The flames then burst out all through the land, except in La Vendue. 

The chateaux of the nobles were pillaged and barned to the ground. 

Tortures were inflicted by the fierce peasants upon their former masters 

The Toy^XFleurde Lis was trampled in the mud, and the Tricolor upraised 

One day in autumn a swarm of women gathered round the Hotel de 



OF HISTORY. 313 

Ville, crying, " Bread I give bread ! " It beet tne the nucleus of a riotous 
crowd, surging v.'ith wild outcries through the streets. Then out came 
Millard with a drum, who said he would lead them to Versailles. Out« 
side the barriers he strove to disperse them, but no — they would 
go on. Hungry, and wet with heavy rain, when they found Oct. 5, 
that the king and the Assembly would give them only words, 
they gathered round the palace. Some fool fired on them. Sweeping 
through an open gate, they spread through all the splendid rooms ; and 
the queen had scarcely time to escape by a secret door, when her bed- 
chamber was filled with a fierce and squalid throng. The timely arrival 
of Lafayette, and the consent of the- king to remove to Paris, alone 
quelled the tumult. 

The next year saw sweeping changes in the Constitution of France. 
The Assembly, of which Mirabeau was the master-spirit, pro- 
ceeded to parcel out the kingdom into eighty-four departments 1790 
of nearly equal size. Stripping the king of his patronage, they A.D. 
gave the appointment of new magistrates and officers to the 
people. Violent hands, too, were laid on the Church lands ; and to create a 
currency, by which these might be purchased, paper bills — called Assignats 
— were issued. But these speedily became worth nothing, for nearly all the 
gold and silver coin was either carried out of France by the flying nobles, 
or buried in quiet corners of field and garden. Hereditary titles were 
abolished ; and no greetings were heard in the streets but " citizen" and 
" citizeness." 

On the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastile there was a 
grand pageant in the Champ de Mars, where the king, the Assembly, the 
soldiers, and the people swore a solemn oath, to maintain the new Consti- 
tution of France. The Jacobin club, so called from holding its meetings 
in a hall lately occupied by the Jacobin friars in Paris, now began to be 
formidable in its influence over the Assembly. Branch societies, all in 
correspondence with the central club, grew up in every corner of France. 
The dismissal of Necker, who was not radical enough in his policy to 
please the heads of the Assembly, took place in the last month of this 
most threatening year. 

Dark and still darker grew the sky. Mirabeau, "our little mother 
Mirabeau," as the fishwomen of the gallery used lovingly to call him, 
was made President of the Assembly in January, 1791. He exerted all 
his giant genius to quell the storm, whose rising gusts had been 
felt at the Bastile aad Versailles ; and poor Louis clung to the 1791 
hope that this aristocratic darling of the rabble might yet save A. D. 
him. But Mirabeau died in April ; and while the spring blos- 
soms were brightening in all the fields of France, the Bourbon liliea 



314 GREA T E VENTS 

drooped their golden heads. There seemed nc hope for Louis but in flight 
He fled in despair, but was recognized, stopped at Varennes, and brought 
back to Paris. 

The Constituent Assembly, having sat for three years, passed a resolu- 
tion dissolving itself (September 29). The breaking of the nobles' power, 
the establishment of the National Guard, and the abolition of torture, let- 
tres de cachet, and many oppressive taxes, were among the boons it had 
conferred on France. Its place was taken by a new body, called the Legis- 
lative Assembly, which began to sit on the ist of October. 

Three distinct factions were already clearly marked out in this terrible 
time, and among these a strife began for preeminence. It was, in truth, 
a battle to the death. 

The spirit of the vanished Assembly was embodied in the party of the 
Feuillants, who sat on the right of the tribune. These friends of 
limited monarchy numbered among them the National Guard and most 
of the officers of State. The Girotzdists, or Moderate Republicans, formed 
the second party. Occupying the highest seats in the hall, and therefrom 
called the " Mountain," sat the Red Republicans — chiefly members of the 
Jacobin and Cordelier clubs — whose rallying cry was " No King." The 
list of this third party contained those terrible names which make us 
shudder aktheir very sound, and turn sick with thoughts of blood. 

The sympathy of the neighboring sovereigns for the wretched Louis, 
and for the imperilled cause of monarchy, led them now to interfere. A 
great army of Austrians and Prussians, under the Duke of Brunswick, en- 
tered the French territory. Already the violent manifesto which Bruns- 
wick issued had roused the French to show a most determined front. 

Matters then grew worse than ever at the centre of the Revolution. The 
Paris mob rose like a sea, swelled by some troops from Marseilles, who, 
first singing along Paris streets the war-hymn of Rouget de Lille, caused 
it henceforth to be known as the Marseillaise. 

Amid pealing bells, and drums beating the generale in eveiy street, 

they crowded to the Tuileries, whose steps were soon piled 

Aug. 10, with the bleeding bodies of the brave Swiss Guards. Louis 

1792 escaped to the Assembly; but he was imprisoned with his 
A.D. family in the old palace of the Temple. A National Con ren- 
tion was summoned. Lafayette fled to the Netherlands, 
where he was arrested by the Austrians. 

While the prisons of Paris were still wet with innocent blood, shed by 
order of the Jacobin leaders, Dumouriez, having taken command of the 
French army, was marshalling his men on the Belgian frontier. Crossing 
into Belgium, he inflicted a signal defeat upon the allies at the village of 
Jemappes (November 6). Acting as aid-de-camp of the French leader 



OF fUSTORi. 



315 



was the young Duke of Chartres, whom we know better in later days as 
Louis Philippe, King of the French. 

The Assembly gave place to the National Convention, whoae members 
were also elected by the people. The wildest orators of the 
clubs found here their fitting sphere. But three men stood far Sept, 21, 
above the rest in lust of blood. These were Danton, Marat, 1792 
and Robespierre. The lawyer, Danton, was a strong, thunder- A.D. 
voiced bully, who held office as Minister of Justice. Marat, a 
quack-doctor, and editor of the People's Friend, was the most blood-thirsty 
villain of the lot. Robespierre we have already seen sitting on the 
benches of the Constituent Assembly, a very serpent coiled for his deadly 
spring. Now the time had come. Louis must die. 

The trial of the king, for treason and conspiracy against the nation, be- 
gan in December. He denied, with proud calmness, the justness of the 
charge. But denial was useless before judges such as his. Death was the 
sentence of the court, after a discussion of some days. At ten 
o'clock on a January morning he was brought in a carriage to Jan. 21, 
the Place de Louis XV., where the guillotine* awaited its no- 1793 
blest victim. Before the fatal knife fell, he tried to address the A.D. 
crowd, who were stunned for the time into deep silence ; but 
the incessant rattle of drums drowned his voice, and in a few seconds 
more the head of poor Louis Capet — so his republican murderers called 
him — rolled bleeding in the sawdust. 

At this insult to royalty all the powers of Europe arose, and a circle of 
steel began to narrow round devoted France. But her energies were not 
exhausted. All the powers of the state were now centred in a small body 
of Jacobins, called the "Committee of Public Safety," foremost among 
whom were the three tigers lately named. The Reign of Terror began. 
The Girondists, friends of moderate republicanism, were slain without 
mercy, or driven over the land, without shelter or food, to die. When 
Marat met a merited death — he was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte 
Corday, a young girl from Caen (July, 1793) — Robespierre was left sole 
dictator of France. A frightful carnage followed. Every day saw red 
baskets of human heads carried from the guillotine, whose dull thud w{2iS 
music to the crowd. Women sat and worked as calmly as in the pit of 
the theatre, while the fearful tragedy was played out before their eyes. 

* "La Guillotine," as the French call this deadly machine, fonretting tlieir native 
gallantrj' when they make the name feminine, was invented about 1T85, hy Dr. Giiil« 
lotin. It is a large loaded knife set in a wooden frame, and its action is instantane- 
ous. Dr. Guillotin did not, as is commonly thought, perish hy his own invention. 
A similar instrument was in early use in Scotland, where it was called the maiden. 
It was also used at Halil'aT, in England. 



3l6 GREAT EVENTS 

Fathers brought their little ones to see the heads fall. And as fast as the 
prisons were em;)tied by this wholesale butchery, fresh victims, denounced 
often by their nearest neighbors, were thrust into the cells to await their 
certain doom. 

Queen Marie Antoinette followed her husband to the guillotine and the 
grave in the October of the same year. Bailly, Condorcet, Barnave, and 
Madame Roland met the same fate. Philip Egaliie, whose vote had 
been given for the death of his royal kinsman, went also to his richly-de- 
served doom. 

Still the mob cried for more heads. The guillotine could not be stopp- 
ed. Some of the Mountain-men, less tigerish than their fellows, were first 
laid below its edge. Such were Danto.i and Caraille Desmoulins. It is 
little wonder that Christianity was cast aside in this Reign of Terror. 
The Goddess of Reason, impersonated by a worthless woman, was openly 
worshipped, and torches were burnt before her shrine. A thing was then 
tried, the failure of which is a noteworthy proof how little man's wisdom 
is when compared with that of the all-wise God. Every tenth day was 
appointed a day of rest and amusement ; but neither man nor beast could 
bear the strain of ten days' work. It was found that no arrangement 
will suit the human frame but that of God's own making — one day in sev- 
en — not for sloth or revelry, but, as His law says, to be kept holy. 

During these terrible days the Republic was in great danger. The 
army of Dumouriez was defeated by the Austrians at Neerwinden (1793), 
and he, finding himself hated and suspected by those in power at home, 
rode away to the Austrian camp. The desertion of so skillful a leader 
was a heavy blow. Insurrection raged both in La Vendee, where the 
Royalists mustered strong, and in the cities of Marseilles, Lyons, and 
Toulon. Marseilles and Lyons were soon reduced to subjection. Toulon 
gave more trouble, for the garrison were aided by English and Spanish 
ships. The cannon of the Republic made but small impression on the 
town, until their fire was turned upon the forts commanding the harbor. 
When these gave way, Toulon was abandoned by the allied defeiuders. 
This success was mainly owing to the skill of Lieutenant-Colonel Bona- 
parte, a Corsican officer of artillery, who planned the attack, and directed 
the laying of the guns. We shall hear more of this olive-cheeked little 
soldier in succeeding years. 

Murders, rivalling in atrocity those of Paris, were perpetrated in many 
parts of France, but especially at Nantes. Carrier, who was president 
there, shot men, women, and children by hundreds. Boats, crowded with 
poor sufferers, were rowed out into the deep Loire, there scuttled, and left 
to sink with all their shrieking freight. 

The death of Robespierre marks the crisis in the red fever of revd'A 



OF HISTORY. 



317 



tion. Thenceforward France began to mend. Accused by Billaud-Va- 
rennes of seeking to establish his own power by the death of his coi 
leagues, this sleek and smiling villain was condemned to die. He es- 
caped, but was retaken. Terror-stricken at the thought of the guillotine — 
long the slave of his frightful passion for blood, but now to be the instru- 
ment of his most righteous punishment — ^he tried to kill him- 
stlf ; but he only broke his jaw. Groaning with the agony of July 28, 
this wound, and shivering with deadly terror, the unpitied 1794: 
wretch was dragged to the place of execution, and there slain, A.D. 
amid the gibes and yells of the crowd for whose brutal appe- 
tite he had been chief caterer. With his death the Reign of Terror 
ended. 

In the summer of the next year (June 9th, 1795) little Louis XVII., 
who had been lingering in the Temple since the death of his parents 
died, worn out by abuse and neglect. He was only ten years old. 

The Convention then gave place to the Directory. France received a 
new Constitution — the third since 1789. The laws were to be made by 
two Councils — the Ancients and the Five Htmdred. The power of pro- 
posing a new law lay with the latter ; while the former, number- 
ing two hundred and fifty members, all above forty years of age, 1795 
sat in judgment to pass or reject the proposals of the larger A.D. 
body. The execution of the laws was vested in five Directors, 
who were chosen by the Ancients and the Five Hundred. Each Director 
was president for three months, and then yielded to the next in turn. 

The Directory was not established without a struggle. It was short, 
sharp, but thoroughly decisive. The Sections of Paris protested against 
the change proposed by the Convention, and the National Guard, to the 
number of thirty thousand, backed the citizens in their resistance. There 
were only five thousand troops in Paris to oppose this formidable mass. 
The command of these was given to Barras, who wisely intrusted the 
cannon to that same artillery officer we have seen directing the bombard 
ment of Toulon. 

Bonaparte pointed the guns, charged to the muzzle with grape-shot, 
down all the streets by which the Tuileries could be approached ; and 
when, on the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire, the heads of the advanc- 
ing columns began to appear along the quays and Rue St. Honord, they 
were ordered to disperse in the name of the Convention. 
They moved on. The matches were applied. Gun after gun thun- Oct. 4, 
dcred in the faces of the wedged-up crowd, and the grape-shot 1795 
tore its way in broad lanes through the mass. There was no A.D. 
standing this. After a few straggling shots and some feeble show 
ol lighting, the National Guard fell back, and the new Constitution stood 

13 



3l8 GREAT EVENTS 

on firm ground. With this ended the French Revolution, and here open- 
ed the wonderful career of Napoleon Bonaparte. 



CHAPTER II. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 

Central Point: THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ, December 2, 1805 A.D. 

Early life of Napoleon— Entry upon public life — His maariage — Italian campaign of 1796 — 
Campo Formio— Invasion of Egypt— Made First Consul— Battle of Marengo— Treaty of 
Amiens — The Code Napoleon — Becomes emperor— Crowned King of Italy— Battle of Aus- 
terlitz — Battle of Jena — The Berlin Decrees — The Peninsular War— Battle of Wagram — 
The Austrian marriage — The Russian campaign- Battles of Leipsic — The abdication — Elba 
—Louis and the Charter— The Hundred Days — St. Helena. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on the 15th of 
August, 1769. His father, Charles, was a lawyer, but saw some military 
service under Paoli against the French. His mother was Letizia Ramo- 
lini. Of these parents Napoleon was the second son. In April, 1779, the 
little fellow, then not ten years old, left home for the military school of 
Brienne. Here he spent five years and a half. His name appears in the 
report furnished yearly to the king by the Inspector of Schools, with these 
remarks : " Distinguished in mathematical studies, tolerably versed in 
history and geography, much behind in Latin, belles-lettres, and other 
accomplishments ; of regular habits, studious and well-behaved, and en- 
joying excellent health." The story of the snow fortress, attacked and 
defended by the Brienne boys, when Napoleon led the stormers. 

1785 is a well-known bit of his school life. In October, 1784, the 
A.D. young mathematician left Brienne for the Military School at 
Paris ; and in less than a year he got his commission as sous- 
lieutenant of artillery. 

In the Revolution Napoleon took the popular side. We have already 
seen him cannonading the outworks of Toulon, and, a little later, tearing 
the National Guard to pieces with canister and grape. He little thought 
on that October day that the shots of the cannon, which then boomed out 
the death knell of Revolution, were pealing in a great era of French 
history, in which himself was for twenty years to be the central 
figure. 

His rise was rapid after the day of grape-shot. Barras being made one 
of the Directors, by his influence Bonaparte became, at the ag£ of twentv- 
five. General of the Army of the Interior. His next great step in life was 
marriage. Josephine Beauharnais, a Creole of Martinique, and the widow 



OF HISTORY. 319 

of a general officer who had perished by the guillotine, became his wife in 
March, 1796. She was older than he by some years, but a warm and 
strong affection united their hearts. Before the wedding-day he had 
received from Carnot, the Minister of War, his commission as General of 
the Army of Italy. 

The fair northern plains of the most beautiful land in Europe were 
swarming with Austrian soldiers. Old Beaulieu commanded them. 
When Bonaparte arrived at Nice, he found the army, with which he was ex- 
pected to beat these hordes of Austrians and their Sardinian allies, little 
better than a rabble — badly clothed, badly fed, badly drilled, badly paid, 
and with scarcely a hundred serviceable horses among forty-two thousand 
men. The one point in favor of the French soldiers was 
that they were young. Their new general was young too, 1796 
only twenty-six, and had yet to be tried as a leader of A.D. 
armies. It seemed a hazardous cast on which to set the fame 
of the new French government. Yet that young general with his raw re- 
cruits conquered Italy within a twelvemonth. A succession of the most 
brilliant and decisive victories marked his steps through the land of art 
and song. At Montenotte and Millesimo he drove back the Austrians 
and thus cut them off from the Piedmontese. Having then the latter at 
his mercy, he soon subdued them. 

The Sardinian king, Victor Araadeus III., was glad to conclude a peace 
upon the humiliating terms of giving up to France all his chief fortresses 
and all the passes of the Alps. Crossing the Po below Pavia, Bonaparte 
then forced Beaulieu to fall back upon the Adda. Here was the Bridge 
of Lodi, ever since a name to stir the blood of Frenchmen. The 
Austrian cannon, commanding the passage, hurled death in iron tor- 
rents upon the advancing columns. But the grenadiers of 
France dashed gallantly on, carried the bridge, and were May 10. 
among the Austrian guns, bayoneting the artillerymen, be- 
fore Beaulieu could bring his infantry to the rescue. Milan fell at once 
before the conqueror. Mantua alone, through all the Lombard plain, 
held out for a time. Early in November the bloody battle of Areola 
raged for three days, ending, like all the rest, in the triumph of the Corsi- 
can. The victory of Rivoli and the capitulation of Mantua formed the 
brilliant opening of 1797. Italy lay at the feet of a young soldier in his 
twenty-sixth year ; and beaten Austria crouched among the pine-woods of 
the Tyrol. 

Crossing the Alps and driving the Archduke Charles before him, Bona 
parte then advanced towards Vienna. But, when he had arrived within 
eight days' march of the Austrian capital, he was met with proposals for 
peace ; and he turned back to overthrow the ancient government of 



320 



GREAT EVENTS 



Venice. This " Bride of the Adriatic" was made a scape-goat for the 
sins of Austria. The galley Bucentaur was stripped of its golden decora- 
tions ; the Venetian fleet was either sunk or sent to sea ; the bronze horses 
of St. Mark's were carried to the Tuileries, whither already the master- 
pieces of Italian painting and sculpture had gone. Manin, last of the 
Doges, fainted as he gave in his oath of allegiance to the Emperor of 
Austria. 

The Ti-eaty of Campo Foraiio, concluded between France and Austria, 

was the seal of this iniquitous bargain. By it France gained 

Oct. 17, the Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, the Ionian 

1797 Islands, and the Venetian territories in Albania. The Milan 

A.D, ese and Mantuan States were erected into the Cisalpine 

Republic. 

After a time of quiet repose we find Bonaparte seeking new laurels on 

the sands of Egypt. Arriving there in the summer of 1798, he defeated 

the Mamelukes in the battle of the Pyramids. His grand object was to 

tear India from the British crown. But a mighty foe was on the watch. 

Nelson had chased him down the Mediterranean, and now destroyed his 

fleet as it lay in the roads of Aboukir (August i, 1798). His repulse at 

Acre ruined forever his hopes of crippling British power in the East. 

Leaving his soldiers — tired, sick, and starving — under Kleber, to attempt 

an impossible conquest, he secretly returned to France with a few devoted 

officers. During his absence of seventeen months (May 9, 1798 — October 

8, 1799) ^^ Directory had fallen into disgrace with the French people. 

Austria, with the aid of Suwarrow and his Russians, had recovered Italy. 

French soldiers had been defeated on the Rhine. And the money matters 

of the country were sadly behind; 

All eyes turned to Bonaparte, who resolved on a change. Abb^ Sieyes, 
one of the Directors, had sketched out a new Constitution, and it remain- 
ed for Bonaparte and his grenadiers to overthrow the old state of things and 
lay the foundation of the new. The two Councils were removed to St. 
Cloud, lest they might be overawed by the mob of Paris. 
Nov. IO5 Bonaparte appeared one day among them, passed from the 
1799 hall of the Ancients to that of the Five Hundred, and when 
A.D. in the latter the cry of " No Dictator" rose from the angry 
members, who crowded noisily round him, a file of soldiers 
rushed in to save him. 

His brother Lucien, who was president, left the chair, and proclaimed 
the Assembly dissolved. Murat then led through the hall a band of 
grenadiers, with drums beating and bayonets at the charge, clearing out 
the members, some of whom tumbled with undignified haste out of the 
windows. Then the government of France was placed in the hands 0/ 



OF HISTOR Y. 



321 



three consuls, appointed for ten years. Bonaparte was First Consul, and 
held all i-eal power, his colleagues, Sieyes and Ducos, being mere assist- 
ants and advisers. These two inferior consuls soon gave place to Cam- 
bacSres and Lebrun. The law-making was done according to the new 
plan, by the consuls, a Senate of eighty, a Legislative Assembly of three 
hundred, and a Tribunate of one hundred members. 

The First Consul then began to act the king. He wrote a letter to 
George III. of England, proposing peace, but the offer was rejected in a 
strongly-worded reply from Grenville. Already he had detached Russia 
from the coalition of nations against whom he had to contend. At home, 
he bent all his energies to the raising of troops, and a quarter of million 
conscripts were soon marshalled beneathed his banner. He gagged the 
press. He put down the civil war in La Vendee. He filled France with 
detectives, whose vigilance covered the land with an unseen network of es- 
pionage. And, well aware of the national taste for show, he gathered into 
the ball-rooms of the Tuileries crowds of handsome soldiers, gay with scar- 
let and gold, and lovely women, whose toilettes rivalled in taste and 
splendor the fashions of the later Bourbon dames. 

Resolved again to humiliate Austria on the plains of Lombardy, he sig- 
nalized the last spring of the century by his famous passage of the Alps. 
With thirty-six thousand men, and forty cannon, he climbed 
the Great St. Bernard, his soldiers dragging the dismounted May, 
guns up the icy slopes in the hollow trunks of trees. Like an 1800 
avalanche he poured his troops upon the green plain below. On a.d. 
the 2d of June he entered Milan in triumph, and met the wings 
of his army, which had crossed by the Simplon and the St. Gothard, A 
fortnight later, he met old Melas, the Austrian leader, on the 
plain of Marengo, near Alessandria. The French army, out- June 14. 
numbered three to one, was driven back and all but beaten, un- 
til the gallant Desaix flung himself with the last reseiwe upon the Aus- 
trian column and broke it to pieces. 

The leader of the charge, to whom, not long before, Bonaparte had pre- 
sented a sword engraven with the proud words, " Conquete de la Haute 
Egypte" fell dead from his horse, shot through the breast in the moment 
of victory. The Austrians were soon driven beyond the Adige and the 
Brenta. In the same year (November 3) Moreau, who had 
been sent to the Rhine, defeated the Austrians at Hohenlinden. Feb. 9j 
These successes were followed by the treaty of Luneville, 1801 
concluded between Austria and France. The leading terms A.D, 
of this peace were similar to those of Campo Formio. 

Ere this Christianity had been re-established in France ; and the peo- 
ple gladly welcomed the old familiar chime of the church-bells, ringing in 



322 



GREAT EVENTS 



the seventh day's rest. Now a general amnesty was granted to all emi- 
grants who would take an oath of allegiance to the new government be- 
fore a certain date, and about one hundi-ed thousand exiles turned their 
weary feet towards home. Wherever it was possible, these returning 
wanderers got back their old estates. The " Legion of Honor " was in- 
Etituted, for both soldiei^s and civilians. England was the power most 
dreaded by Bonaparte ; and he well knew that her navy was her highest 
glory and greatest strength. He woi'ked in the northern courts until he 
united Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and afterwards Prussia, in a formid- 
able league against England and her ships. But Nelson, sailing into the 
harbor of Copenhagen in the face of two thousand cannon, crushed the 
naval power of Denmark in four hours (April 2, 1801). And, a few days 
earlier, the Emperor Paul of Russia was strangled by conspirators. So 
the giant league melted into nothing. At the same time, British bayonets 
under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, scattered the last relics of the army which 
Bonaparte had abandoned in Egypt. 

These disappointments and reverses made the First Consul wish for 
peace. At Amiens this short-lived peace was signed. France 
March 27, retained Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, and got 
1802 back her West Indian Islands. Holland received once more 
A.D. the Cape of Good Hope. England kept Ceylon. But Na- 
poleon never meant peace ; all he intended was a short breath- 
ing time, that he might take an important step at home, and gird himself 
for a more brilliant career of victory abroad. 

All France was wild with delight at the dazzling glory of the First Con- 
sul's victories, and the kindness of his rule. When the en- 
Ang. 2j thusiasm had reached the boiling point, a deci'ee of the Sen- 
1802 ate appeared, proclaiming Bonaparte First Consul for life 
A.D. The votes of the people all over the land ratified the 
change. 
One work he did at this time, which half redeems his memory, in 
France at least, from the red cloud that blurs its glory. He set a number 
of his best lawyers, with Cambac^res at their head, to arrange the laws of 
his adopted land. Six distinct codes, published at various times, art 
loosely grouped together as the Code Napoleon. Of these, the Civil Code 
is undoubtedly the best ; and France still enjoys the valued legacy. In 
the schools, instruction took, as might be expected, an almost exclusively 
military turn. Latin, mathematics, and drill were the great aims of the 
teacher's work. The First Consul laughed metaphysics and kindred 
studies to utter scorn. No better proof to him of time well spent at 
school than the ability to fence with skill, to point a gun, or sketch out 
the map of a position. 



OF HISTORY. 



Z^Z 



Then, with studied insults, he drove England again into war. In May, 
1803, the British Government seized all French vessels in British harbors, 
an act which Napoleon retaliated by throwing into prison all Englishmen 
found travelling in France. French soldiers then rapidly overran Han- 
over, and prepared to invade Naples. At the same time the First Consul 
began to muster his legions and fleets for the invasion of England. This 
was his grandest design ; but he never was able to cross the narrow strS't. 
With one hundred and sixty thousand blue-jackets standing by her guns 
at sea, and double that number of red-coats lining her southern shores, 
Britain stood oii her guard. The whole scheme vanished into nothing. 
Eighteen hundred years before, a mad Emperor of Rome had set his le- 
gions to pick shells on that same low beach, where the " Army of Eng- 
land" lay encamped, and had then celebrated his conquest of the white 
cliffed island by a splendid triumph at Rome. Bonaparte could not stoop 
to folly like this. But he turned away in fear ; and leaving his flat-bot- 
tomed boats at Boulogne, he marched his soldiers towards the Danube. 

But before he won there his greatest victory, he had perpetrated his 
greatest crime, and reached his highest eminence. A plot against his life 
was detected by his sleepless police. Two generals, Pichegru and Mo- 
reau, were involved in the affair. While Pichegru lay in prison, he was 
found strangled ; Moreau went into exile. But an innocent man fell a vic- 
tim to a vague suspicion of the same kind. His true crime was only that 
he was a Bourbon. Seized in Baden, the young Duke d'Enghien was 
hurried to the castle of Vincennes. There, after a mock trial, he was 
shot by torch-light in the darkness of a wild March morning, and buried 
as he lay, in his bloody and bullet-torn clothes (March 21). Within two 
months the First Consul was declared, by the Senate and the Tribunate, 
Emperor of the French. The votes of the people being taken, only about 
four thousand names were registered against his elevation. He 
was too impatient to wait for the collection of the votes. On May 18, 
the l8th of May he assumed the imperial name at St. Cloud, 1804 
and on the following day he created eighteen of his best gen- A.D. 
erals Marshals of the Empire. 

The Pope, Pius VII., was invited to Paris to crown the newly-elected 
emperor. At Notre Dame, on the 2d of December, the ceremony of coro- 
nation wa5 performed. The pope blessed the crown, and Napoleon, tak- 
ing it from the altar, placed it on his own head. Her husband's hand 
then crowned Josephine as empress. 

The republics of Italy were then all merged into a kingdom, of which 
Bonaparte was in\iited to become king. It pleased him well. Indeed, he 
must have foreseen and worked toward this ancient end of French ambi- 
tion. In the Cathedral of Milan (May 26, 1805), he assumed the iron 



324 



GREAT EVENTS 



crown of Lombardy, saying, as he placed the rusty rim upon his tvimples, 
" God has given it to me ; woe to him who shall attempt to lay hands on 
it ! " He then named Eugene Beatiharnais, his step-sen, as his vice- 
roy in Italy. 

England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden were now united against this 
little man, who threatened so seriously to disturb the balance of power 
in Europe. He had broken faith with all, and it was clear that he med- 
itated new and mightier conquests. The first great blow was struck by 
the English Nelson, who shattered the navies of France and Spain in the 
great fight off Trafalgar (October 2i, 1805), when he found a warrior's 
death on the quarter-deck of his ship, the Victory. But on land the 
French eagles were brilliantly triumphant. Mack, the Austrian leader, 
was hemmed in at Ulm, and forced to surrender with nearly thirty thou- 
sand men (October 17, 1805). In less than a month the victorious French 
marched into Vienna, from which Francis II. had fled to Olmutz. And 
then came the crowning triumph of the campaign. 

At Austerlitz, a Moravian village, the rival armies faced each other, — 

eighty thousand Russians and Austrians pitted against a nearly equal 

number of French veterans. A frosty sun shone bright upon 

Dec. 2, the yet unsullied battle-ground, as three emperors — Alexander 
1805 of Russia, Francis of Austria, and Napoleon of the French — 
A.D. rode up the heights to watch the great game played out, and 
direct the movements of the day. France and Russia were to 
cross bayonets for the first time at Austerlitz. Cannon thundered, steel 
glanced, whirlwinds of cavalry swept across the field ; and all the terrors 
and fury of battle began to rage. The Russian lines were too long and 
thin. At once Napoleon saw the fault, and like lightning formed his plan. 
Pushing in the centre, and breaking up the wings, he attacked the frag- 
ments of the line separately, and swept them in flying crowds from the 
field. In vain the Russian Guard strove to turn the tide of battle. It 
was a total rout. Then began the horrors of pursuit. A crowd of poor 
wretches were fleeing over the ice which sheeted a neighboring lake, 
when the guns of the victors opened fire upon them, and they sank 
through the ripped and splintered floes. The loss of the allies exceeded 
thirty thousand ; that of the French amounted to fully twelve thousand. 
The Treaty of Presburg, between France and Austria, was signed on the 
26th of December. 

One result of Napoleon's triumph, was a graeat chnge in the constitu- 
tion of Germany. The Electors of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg were made 
kings ; and many of the smaller states were formed, by the victor at 
Austerlitz, into the Confederation of the Rhine. Already, in 1804, Aus- 
tria had been declared an empire, and the Emperor Francis II. of Ger- 



OF HISTORY. 



325 



many had begun to call himself Emperor of Austria. This severance of 
Austria from Germany was formally completed in i3o6. 

The Emperor of the French then began to give away kingdoms. Seiz- 
ing Naples early in 1806, he made his brother Joseph king. Turning the 
Batavian Republic into a Kingdom of Holland, he placed its crown on 
the head of his brother Louis. His brother-in-law, Murat, famed as the 
most dashing cavalry officer in Europe, became Grand Duke of Berg. 

But this year is most remarkable for the complete prostration of Prus- 
sia. She had been playing a double part ; and never has man or nation 
done so without suffering just and heavy punishment. Although she pro- 
fessed to be the friend of England, she made no scruple about receiving 
Hanover from the emperor who was England's bitterest foe. Napoleon 
now changed his tone, having no longer any need for keeping this truck- 
ling power in good humor. 

In two great battles — Auerstadt and Jena — fought upon the Oct. 14, 
same day, he utterly criished the military power with which, 1806 
but half a century ago, the Great Frederic had wrought such A.D. 
marvels. Prussia lay writhing at his feet. 

From the Prussian capital, which he entered in triumph a week after 
the bloody day of Jena, he launched the Berlin Decrees. Thunderbolts 
he meant them to be, scathing to the roots the oak of British commerce ; 
but the petty squibs fizzed harmlessly at the foot of the great, unshaken tree. 

The British islands were declared to be in a state of blockade. The 
Continent of Europe was to hold no correspondence, to transact no busi- 
ness whatever with Britain. British manufactures and produce were de- 
clared contraband. British property was a lawful prize. Letters to and 
from the shores of Britain were to be kept and opened at the post-offices. 
The defeat of these tremendous decrees was complete and very amusing. 
" Artilfery, horse, and infantry were always defeated when opposed to his 
battalions ; but printed ginghams were irresistible. There were conspira- 
cies beyond the reach of his spies in every parlor, where the daughters 
were dressed in colored muslins ; and cloths, cutleiy, and earthenware 
were smuggled wherever an English vessel could float."* 

We next find Russia facing the " Little Corporal," as his bronzed grena- 
diers loved to call him in their stories by the midnight watch-fire. It was 
in the depth of winter that the armies met on the field of Eylau. 
It was a drawn tattle ; but Napoleon, camping for eight days Feb. 8, 
upon the reddened snow, claimed a great victory. But there was 1807 
no doubt about the battle of Friedland, fought on the 14th of A.D. 
the following June. The Russians were driven across the AUer, 
with the loss of sixty thousand men ; and the Czar Alexander sought a 

* White's History of France. 

13* 



326 GREAT EVENTS 

peace, which was concluded at Tilsit, on the Niemen. Prussia, who had 
plucked up heart again to dare French bayonets, had got her share of the 
beating, and was a partner in the humiliation of the peace. 

The reaction now began. Having driven the royal house of Braganza 
from Portugal to Brazil, and having flung the Bourbons from the throne 
of Spain, he set his brother Joseph up in place of the latter, as King of Spain. 
Murat was promoted to fill Joseph's vacant throne at Naples. The Span- 
iards drew their knives, called in British aid, and the Peninsula War began. 
The story of this war may be read in British history. Vimiera was 
1808 its great opening field ; andVittoria (1813) the decisive triumph 
A.D. of its great hero, Wellington. The war in the Peninsula was 
conducted by Napoleon's marshals, for greater interests occupied 
himself at the heart of Europe. He paid a short visit to Spain in the first 
year of the struggle, going, as he said, to rid the Peninsula of " the 
hideous presence of the English leopards." He beat the Spaniards at 
Tudela, entered Madrid in triumph (Dec. 4), and tried without success to cut 
off the retreating army of Moore. Then news of an Austrian war re- 
called him to France, after an absence of scarcely three months. 

Austria now mustered half a million soldiers, bent upon washing out, 
in French blood, the stains which Marengo and Austerlitz had left upon 
her banner. All around her frontiers and within her boundaries a spirit 
had begun to bum, which boded no good to Napoleon. Major Schill 
(soon slain at Stralsund) drilled his corps of Prussian volunteers ; and 
Hofer, the inn-keeper of Tyrol (afterwards shot at Mantua) roused the 
chamois-hunters to a patriotic war. There was no time to lose. Napo- 
leon, dashing over the Rhine, beat the Archduke Charles at Eckmuhl, 
bombarded Vienna, and carried his eagles again into the splendid streets 
which had witnessed their triumphant march not four years before ; and 
all this in nine days (April 3-12). He then crossed the Danube to the 
left bank, and fought there the indecisive battle of Aspern. The Aus- 
trians broke down the bridge behind him, by throwing huge logs of tim- 
ber into the swollen river. 

So he was obliged to shelter his army in the island of Lobau, where he 
lay for six weeks. From this retreat he issued to fight the great 
July 5, battle of Wagram. It was a terrific day. The thunder of the 
1809 sky almost drowned the peals of gunpowder, as the armies 
A.D. rushed to the charge. All the roof-tops of Vienna were 
crowded with pale, excited men and women, gazing on a 
sight such as has seldom been seen. Four hundred thousand men were 
on the field. By mid-day the Austrian centre were driven in, and Fran- 
cis, who had watched the battle from a hill, rode madly from the scene 
of slaughter and defeat. Peace followed, as a matter of course. The 



OF HISTORY. 327 

Treaty of Scohnbrunn, signed on the 14th of the following October, yielded 
to the conqueror territory containing more than two millions of people. 

Yet Napoleon did not despise Austria. Far from it. It was indeed 
great glory for the pan/enu to humble to the dust an ancient house like 
that of Hapsburg. But he had still that hankering after ancient name 
and lineage which often disfigures the character of a self-made man. 
Divorcing the faithful and loving Josephine, whose only faults 
were that she was a plebeian and had no children, he married March 11, 
the Archduchess Maria Louisa of Austria, in the hope that 1810 
this daughter of the Hapsburgs would bear him a son. A A.D. 

year afterwards his hope was realized. On the 20th of March, 
1811, a son was born to him, whom he created at once King of Rome, 
But this King of Rome, better known as the Due de Reichstadt, was not 
destined to hold the sceptre of France. Upon the fall of his father in 
1814, he retired to the Austrian court, and died at Schci-obrunn in 1832. 

The year which preceded the Austrian marriage had witnessed strange 
things in Rome. When Napoleon annexed to his far-spreading empire 
the Papal States, the poor pope issued a bull of excommunication against 
the sacrilegious usurper. Napoleon, minding this once terrible instrument 
no more than the bite of a gnat, took a still more daring step. Sending 
his gendarmes one summer night to scale the walls of the palace on the 
Quirinal, he carried the pope a captive to Savona, whence he removed him 
in 18 1 2 to Fontainebleau. 

The position of Napoleon at this height of his power, (1811) is well 
worth marking. The French Empire, over which he ruled, extended from 
the borders of Denmark to those of Naples. Holland, Naples, and 'West- 
phalia were ruled by his kinsmen. His brother Joseph held an insecure 
throne at Madrid, Bernadotte, one of his generals, had been chosen 
Crown-Prince of Sweden. As Protector of the Confederation of the 
Rhine, he held the German States in subjection, and he did the same kind 
office for the Helvetic Confederation, into which he had formed the can- 
tons of Switzerland. Prussia and Austria crouched at his feet, and Russia 
seemed his firm ally. In four years all was changed. The magician's 
wand was broken, and his magnificent theatre of action had shrunk into 
a little house and garden, on a barren rock far out in the tropic seas. 

The miserable Russian campaign of 1812 was but the beginning of 
iisasters. In defiance of the advice of old and wise counsellors, he declared 
war against the czar, who had opened liis ports to British goods. 
Assembling a magnificent army of more than half a million be- 1812 
tween the Vistula and the Niemen, he crossed the latter stream A.D, 
in the middle of June. The Russians had mustered to the 
number of about three hundred thousand men. But they wisely trusted 



328 



GREA T E VENTS 



more to their climate than to their bayonets or their cannon. Falling 
back before the invading army, they lured Napoleon into the heart of a 
bleak and barren land, where his horses died for want of forage, and his 
soldiers sickened with ague and rheumatism. Still his heart never failed 
him, for he believed that he was destined to march triumphant into St 
Petersburg, as he had marched into Vienna and Madrid. 

On he pressed through Wilna, and up to the walls of Smolensk, against 
which he turned all his force. A heavy cannonade made little 
Au^. 16. impression on the solid walls ; but the city was set on fire by 
his shells ; and in the night the Russians fled from its burning 
streets. The march of Napoleon to Moscow, where he meant to take up 
his winter quarters, was checked for a little at Borodino, There, Kutu- 
soff faced the French. The armies numbered about one hundred and 
thirty thousand men each, and had between them over one thousand 
cannon. 

From early morning till nightfall the battle raged, and then the Rus- 
sians fell back in unbroken order towards Moscow. Ninety 
Sept. 7. thousand men were slain or wounded on that terrible day. A 
week later, the army of Napoleon saw the longed-for haven. 
The towers of the Kremlin, and the fantastic spires of Moscow, linked 
together with gilt chains, lay below them to the east. But when they 
entered the city, it was silent and empty. Next night a fire 
Sept. 14. broke out, then another and another, until the city was a sea 
of flame. Napoleon and his troops could not stay. He in- 
deed returned for a while to the Kremlin ; but when peace was re- 
fused by the enraged czar, there was nothing left for the baffled emperor 
but to hurry back to France. 

The retreat began on the igth of October. The Russians followed fast, 
harassing the fugitives at every step. But worse than Cossacks were the 
snow and the wind. The land spread before them one vast winding- 
sheet of drifted snow. The blinding flakes fell thick around them as 
they stumbled on. They often marched between files of their comrades 
who had been frozen to death. Harassed by repeated attacks, they strug- 
gled with constantly thinning ranks through Smolensk, where they found 
a little food, on to the banks of the Beresina, There they were frightfully 
cut up as they made the passage of the wintry stream. Twenty-four 
thousand wei-e either drowned in the icy water or smashed with Russian 
shot. 

At Smorgoni (December 5) Napoleon abandoned the wretched phan- 
tom of the grand army, and set out in a sledge for Paris. Only a few 
thousand gaunt and frost-bitten men, more like famished wolves than 
human beings, mustered on the Vistula after this tragic campaign. It is 



OF HISTORY. 329 

calculated that one hundred and twenty-five thousand perished in battle ; 
that one hundred and thirty-two thousand died of fatigue, hunger, and 
cold ; and that one hundred and ninety-three thousand were made prison- 
ers. Seldom has so fearful a blow fallen upon human pride. 

The beaten conqueror reached the Tuileries about midnight on the i8th 
jf December. He knew that the struggle was now to be for life 01 
death. It gives some idea of the amazing hold which he had upon the 
heart of France, to read that in four months he was at the head of three 
hundred and fifty thousand men. And he needed eveiy bayonet there, 
for all Europe was arrayed against him. The banks of the Elbe became 
the scene of war. The victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, both won in 
May, were of little use to stem the great tide of enemies which had set in 
towards Paris. A conference at Prague decided nothing, but threw the 
weight of Austria into the coalition against Napoleon. Battle 
after battle was fought, until he made his final stand at_^Leipsic. 16tll and 
There two bloody battles took place, in the latter of which 18tll Oct. 
a body often thousand Saxons deserted the French lines, and 1813 
so weakened Napoleon, that next day he began to fall back a.d. 
upon the Rhine with a broken and disordered force. In the 
same year the great battle of Vittoria (June 21, 1813) had driven the 
French armies out of the Peninsula. 

The dawn of the following year saw a great allied host on the march 
for the French frontiers. Wellington was in the south of France ; and 
the emperor found even old friends and fellow-soldiers — Murat and 
Bernadotte — arrayed against him. He summoned all his energies to 
meet the crisis. For more than two months, with a greatly inferior force, 
he faced his foes, winning many victories, and enduring with unbroken 
courage many checks. At last he made a false move. He dashed to the 
rear of the allies, in the hope that they would retreat in terror. Instead of 
this, however, they marched at once upon Paris, which was 
surrendered without a struggle by Marmont. On the following Mar. 31, 
day the allied sovereigns led their troops in triumph along 1814: 
the crowded Boulevards. Napoleon, who came up too late to A.D. 
save his capital, rode away to Fontainebleau. In two days he 
was deposed by a decree of the Senate ; on the 4th of April he signed the 
deed of abdication, which stripped him of the French and Italian crowns ; 
and on the 20th of the same month, having spoken a few sad words of 
farewell to the Old Guard in the court-yard of Fontainebleau, he set out for 
the little island of Elba, where he was henceforth, as all the world thought, 
to enjoy the name of Emperor and a revenue of six million francs. 
The British frigate Undaunted carried him from Frejus to his new home 
A. few days after Napoleon reached Elba his faithful Josephine died. 



330 



GREA T E VENTS 



The Bourbon dynasty was now restored in the person of Louis XVIII., 
the brother of the guillotined king. But the Bourbons knew as little how 
to rule as they had known before the terrible days of the Revolution. 
The remnant of the exiled noblesse came back to France, clamoring loudly 
for their lost estates, upon which new owners had long been peaceably 
settled. Louis carried out the same line of action on a greater scale. He 
reclaimed everything that had ever belonged to the crown ; and al- 
though he gave the people a Charter, which guaranteed eight great privi- 
leges,* it was given with immensely patronizing airs, and its provisions 
were soon found to be empty forms in the eyes of the king and his court. 
The disbanded troops of Napoleon filled every village in France, sneer- 
ing at the host of foreign troops, who were fed on the fat of the land, 
that the Bourbon might sit safely on his throne. Men began to talk 
through all France of the violets of next spring ; and the innocent little 
blossom hid treason* under its sweet leaves. A certain Corporal Violet 
would come, perhaps, in spring. Ladies who longed for his coming wore 
violets in their bonnets ; and little pictures of the flower were sold, which 
revealed beneath their lifted leaves the face of the banished emperor. 
All this foretold a change, which speedily came. 

Napoleon spent in all about ten months in Elba (May 3, 1814, to Feb- 
ruary 26, 1815). He had around him there some of his old soldiers, who 
were ready to dare anything in his cause. Letters from France told him 
of the Bourbon misrule and of the unquenched love for his magic name 
which was alive throughout the land. He was seen to grow more thought- 
ful as the days went by. The works of engineering, in which he had 
at first taken some interest, had lost their charm. A great plan was cease- 
lessly shaping itself out in his brain. 

The winter of 1814-15 was spent by a Congress of the Allied Powers 
at Vienna, in trying to restore order among the states of Europe. We 
are told that " they consulted wisely all day, and danced indefatigably all 
night." This agreeable round of business sweetened with pleasure was 
rudely disturbed. Like the bursting of a shell on their council-table came 
the news that Napoleon was in France. 

Slipping away from Elba in a brig called the Inconstant, he had landed 
after three days' sailing in the Gulf of San Juan, near Cannes. He 
had with him one thousand men — six hundred of the Old Guard, and four 
hundred Poles and Corsicans. At Grenoble seven hundred men deserted 
the Bourbon banner for the tricolor. Marshal Ney, who had promised on 

* These were— 1. Equality before the law ; 2. Admission to all employments ; 
3. Unity of administration ; 4. Representative government ; 5. Taxation only by 
the votes of the representatives; 6. Individualliberty ; 7. Liberty of worship: 
8. Liberty of the press. 



OF HISTORl 331 

leaving Paris that he would bring the daring little emperor back with him 

in an iron cage, could not resist the old memories which the sight of 

the well-known face and the sound of the old cry, " Vive 

r Empereur" called up within his breast. Onward to Paris Mar. 20j 

Napoleon pressed. Louis XVIII. set out for Ghent j and 1815 

on the same evening, with the clatter of horse hoofs and the a.d. 

flash of drawn sabres, a carriage dashed up to the Tuileries, 

and the Emperor Napoleon once more sat down to work in his little 

study. And there he worked night and day with most tremendous 

energy. 

He looked narrowly into every department of the government. He 
agreed to all the provisions of the Charter, for he saw clearly it was no 
time to breathe a word of despotic rule. And, most important of all 
to a man in his perilous situation, he strained every nerve to raise a great 
army. By the middle of June he had mustered one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand men, and with these he opened the campaign, which was 
destined to come so speedily to an end. 

Nearly a million of troops had gathered at the summons of the Vienna 
Congress. But of these only the British and the Prussians, both of whom 
lay in Belgium, ready to unite and march upon Paris, gave Napoleon im- 
mediate concern. If he could only beat these closer foes, he would have 
time to meet the more distant armies upon the Rhine. He therefore moved 
towards Charleroi on the 15th of June. Ney, Soult, and Grouchy were 
his marshals. On the following day (the i6th) he gave battle in two 
places — himself driving Bliicher from Ligny, while Ney made an 
unsuccessful attack upon a body of English troops at Quatre Bras. On 
the 17th, Wellington, in consequence of Bliicher's retreat, fell back to 
Waterloo. 

And therewas fought the greatest battle of the nineteenth century, 
resulting, after the strife had lasted through all the length of a mid-summer 
day, in the utter defeat of Napoleon. His last hope on that 
day was in the invincible Old Guard, whom he held in reserve, June 18, 
until he heard that the Prussians were advancing to the aid of 1815 
Wellington. But when he saw these favorite veterans broken A.D. 
by the withering fire of the British, he turned pale, and crying 
out, " They are mixed together," he rode fast from the field. 

When he got to Paris and saw the temper of the nation, he knew that 
his day of rule was past. On the 22d of June he signed his second ab- 
dication, which was in favor of his son. But the Allies, who entered Paris 
on the 7th of July, annulled this deed, and reinstated Louis XVIII. as 
King of France. 

Napoleon then went to Rochefort with the view of escaping to America ; 



332 GREA T E VENTS 

but this he could not do, because the British cruisers watched all the 
coast. On the 15th of July he went on board the British ship Bellerophon 
(Captain Maitland), having previously written to the Prince Regent to 
say, that " he came, like Themistocles, to claim the hospitality of the 
British people, and the protection of their laws." The ship sailed to 
Torbay, where Napoleon received word that the British government had 
resolved to send him to St. Helena. 

The No7'thumberland carried him out to that lonely rock, which he reach- 
ed on the 15th of October, 18 15. And there he lived, first at Briars and 
then at Longwood, for nearly six years, quarrelling with the governor, and 
dreaming of the glorious past. In 1818 his health began to fail, and on 
the 5th of May, 1821, he died of an ulcer in the stomach. His body, 
laid at first in Slane's Valley, near a clump of weeping willows, was 
borne to France in the winter of 1840, and placed with brilliant cere- 
mony in the Hotel des Invalides. 

The character of Napoleon Bonaparte is a threadbare theme. Never 
has the world seen ambition so brilliantly successful, so frightfully reckless 
of human life, or so miserable in its tragic fall. 

LATEST SOVEREIGNS OF FRANCE. 

A.D. 

Napoleon I. (Emperor of the French) 1804 

Louis XVIII. (Comte de Provence) 1814 

Charles X. (Comte d' Artois) 1824 

Louis Philippe (Due d'Orleans) 1830 

Republic 1848 

Napoleon III. (Emperor) 1852 



CHAPTER III. 

CONTINENTAL EUROPE SINCE 1815. 

Changed life— Second Peace of Paris— State of Spain— Of Portugal- Second French Revolu- 
tion— Lonis Napoleon— His attempts on France— Third French Revolution — Louis Napo- 
leon emperor— The Netherlands— Austrians in Italy— Pio Nono— Greek War of Independ- 
ence — Hungarian struggle — Poland. 

Nearly sixty years of the nineteenth century have gone by. Of these 
years the first fifteen were filled with the story of Napoleon, around whom 
circled nearly all that was worthy to live in history. Since his fall the 
years have been marked by many changes. The motto of Continental 
history has been " Revolution ; " that of our home-story the milder word. 
" Reform." It has been a time, too, of wonderful inventions and discov- 



OF HISTORY. 333 

cries. To cull a few from the long and brilliant list, have we not locomo- 
tives on our railways, gas in our streets and houses, electric wires speed- 
ing our thoughts through air and sea, chloroform banishing our pains, and 
the sun himself taking our pictures with an accuracy that the camel's-hair 
pencil never knew? It is an old and trite way of putting the case, but 
there cannot be a stronger than to ask what would the old man who died 
in 1799 think of our every-day life, if he could spend a day with us now 
in this present year 1872. 

The Second Peace of Paris was signed by France and the Allies on the 
20th of November, 18 15. Its terms were on the whole unfavorable to 
France, for her frontier was contracted to the old line of 1 790. She had 
to pay ^28,000,000 sterling to meet the cost of the war, and a still larger 
sum for the mischief she had done to her neighbors in the days of the 
Revolution ; while all the bronzes and pictures and marbles which Napo- 
leon had gathered into the Louvre, were to be sent back to the cities 
whence they had been stolen. At the same time two other treaties were 
concluded — one by Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England, shutting out 
the Bonaparte family forever from the throne of France ; the other, 
called the Holy Alliance, binding Russia, Austria, and Prussia, " to aid 
one another, in conformity with Holy Scripture, on every occasion." 

Spain. — After the expulsion of Joseph Bonaparte in 1814, Ferdinand 
VII. was restored to the throne of Spain. But it seemed impossible for 
Bourbons to reign except as despots. Against this the Spanish spirit re- 
belled ; and in 1820 a rising of the soldiers forced Ferdinand to restore to 
the people the Constitution of 1S12, which was almost republican. This 
was the opposite extreme, and did not mend the matter ; for the republi- 
can party, when they felt the power in their hands, used it anything but 
well. It was resolved, therefore, at a Congress of European powers, held 
at Verona, to re-establish the authority of the Spanish king. 

In 1823, a French force of one hundred thousand men, under the Duke 
d'Angoul^me, entered Spain, and with little trouble overthrew the Con- 
stitutionalists. The king then renewed all the machineiy of despotism ; 
and so he continued to rule, until, in 1833, he died. His daughter, Isabella 
II., being then only three years old, the queen-mother, Christina, was ap- 
pointed regent. But Don Carlos, the brother of the dead king, claimed 
the throne, and a desolating civil war began to rage. Some aid from 
Britain was given to the queen, whose cause triumphed in 1840. Almost 
ever since, Spain has been -in a troubled state. In 1854, a revolution 
broke out, of which the chief centres were Barcelona and Madrid. Then 
a National Junta was established ; and the queen-mother, who, driven 
from Spain in 1840, had returned in 1844, was again obliged to leave the 
land. 



334 



GREAT EVENTS 



Portugal. — When, in 1807, Napoleon issued one of his haughty edicts 
declaiing that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign over Portugal, 
the royal family of that land crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, where the Re- 
gent John continued to live even after he became king in i8f6. This ab- 
senteeism greatly displeased the people of Portugal, v^ho, catching fire 
from their Spanish neighbors, rose and established a new Constitution. 
In 1821, the court returned from Brazil, which was soon finally severed 
from the crown of Portugal, Dom Pedro, the son of John, becoming Em- 
peror of Bi-azil in 1826. By thus choosing the crown of Brazil, Pedro 
left that of Portugal to his little daughter, Maria II. But her uncle Mig- 
uel usurped the throne, and a civil war ensued, in which the British help- 
ed Pedro and his daughter. The defeat of Miguel's navy in 1833 off 
Cape St. Vincent by Admiral Napier brought the war to a close, throwing 
Lisbon into the hands of Pedro. Donna Maria reigned from 1834, when 
.she was declared of age by the Cortes, until her death, which happened 
in 1853. Her son, Pedro V. then became king. 

France. — The history of France since 1815 is full of change. When 
Louis XVIII. died, in 1824, his brother became king with the title of 
Charles X. This king, like all his Bourbon kindred and our own unhap- 
py Stuarts, had a mania for despotic rule. He could not — poor blind 
king — read the lessons written in French blood upon those pages of the 
national story which had not long been closed. In 1827 he disbanded the 
Civic Guard. In 1 830, aided by a minister, Polignac, as blind and fool 
ish as himself, he issued three ordinances, which kindled the Second 
French Revolution. These were :— i. That the liberty of the press was 
suspended ; 2. That the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved before it had 
met ; 3. That the elections were to be made by the prefects, who were all 
creatures of the government. 

On the morning of the 26th of July, Charles went out to hunt rabbits 
at St. Cloud, little dreaming of a brooding storm. Next day many of 
the morning newspapers were published in defiance of the royal edict, 
upon which the police broke into the offices and smashed the presses. 
Throughout that day the streets were crowded with men and women, so 
angry and excited that Marmont thought it best about four o'clock to put 
the troops under arms. There was some skirmishing ; but at night all 
seemed so quiet that Marmont, thrown off his guard, sent word to the 
king that the riot was subdued. 

That night the street lamps were broken, and the paving-stones torn up 

to form barricades. The 28 th dawned upon a more stirring 

1880 scene. Men, wearing the uniform of the disbanded Guards, 

A.D. hurried along with the tricolor cockade in their hats. A sharp 

fire of musketry from the barricades and the windows of the 



OF HISTOR V. 



335 



houses drove back the soldiers everywhere, while paving-stones rain2d on 
them from the roofs. Point after point was won by the people, until the 
night set in. Next day (29th) the desertion of some regiments to the 
insurgents strengthened the cause of Revolution so much that before four 
o'clock in the afternoon Paris was in the hands of the people. A provi- 
sional government was appointed ; and in a few days Louis Philippe, 
Duke of Orleans, the son of Egalild, was elected King of the French. 
Charles took refuge at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, where he lived for 
some time. He died at Gratz, in Austria, in 1836. 

The reign of Louis Philippe lasted from 1830 to 1848. The man whom 
he would have dreaded most, if he could have foreseen the future, was 
Louis Napoleon, since the Emperor of the French. This son of Louis 
Bonaparte, once King of Holland, was born at Paris in 1808. His mo- 
ther, Hortense, went after the fall of Napoleon to Switzerland, and while 
her boys were growing up, she used to spend the summers there, and the 
winters at Rome. 

After the Revolution of 1830, Louis Napoleon wrote to Louis Philippe 
for leave to return to France, offering to carry a musket in the ranks as a 
common private. This being refused, he joined the revolutionary party 
in Italy, and saw some service against the papal troops ; but was soon 
obliged to settle down to a quiet literary life in Switzerland. The death 
of the Due de Reichstadt gave a new hope to his life. Thenceforward he 
devoted himself to the restoration of the Napoleon dynasty in France. 
His works, some of which were written in this Swiss seclusion, all bear 
the stamp of his great purpose. Chief of these are his " Political Re- 
views," " Id(5es Napoleoniennes," " Reflections upon Switzerland," and 
" Manual of Artillery." 

When the time seemed ripe for the execution of his plans, Louis Napo- 
leon came to Baden, and there met with Colonel Vaudry, who command- 
ed the artillery in Strasbourg. On the 30th of October, 1836, Vaudry 
assembled his men in the square of the artillery barracks at Strasbourg, 
and presented to them Louis as the nephew of the late emperor. A cheer 
was raised, and all seemed well ; but the other colonels of the garrison 
were not so enthusiastic. Then came hesitation among the soldiers, fatal to 
the design. Louis was arrested, and all hope was gone. It did not seem 
a very formidable affair to the French government, and the only seitence 
passed was banishment from France. 

Louis went to America, where he travelled much both in the northern and 
southern Continents. The illness of his mother, who died in 1837, called 
him back to Europe. He stayed a while in Switzerland ; but, when he found 
Louis Philippe demanding from the Swiss that he should be banished 
from their cantons, he went to England. There he lived for about two 



336 GREA T E VENTS 

years, until, growing tired of inaction, he resolved again to try his fortune 
on French soil. With Count Montholon, fifty other friends, and a tame 
eagle, he sailed from Margate in a hired steam-boat, and landed on the 
6th of August, 1840, at Boulogne. His first move was to the barracks. 
But the soldiers would not surrender ; and the crest-fallen invaders, after 
a few shots, made for their steamer again. Before they could get on board, 
however, most of them were arrested, Louis Napoleon among the rest. 
He was tried before the Peers, defended by Berryer with great eloquence, 
but sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Ham was the fortress chosen 
as his prison ; and there he lay until 1846, when, aided by Dr. Conneau, 
he managed to escape in the dress of a workman. England became again 
his home, until the great change of 1848 opened for him a new theatre of 
action. 

Louis Philippe was no favorite with the French people, especially after 
the death of his son, the Duke of Orleans, who was thrown from his 
carriage in 1842. Murmurs grew loud and deep against the corruptions 
of the government. The crisis came in 1848, when a reform banquet, 
appointed to take place on the 22d of February, which was the birth-day 
of the great American, Washington, was forbidden by the government. 
That evening there was a riot round the tavern where the banquet was to 
have taken place. The next day (23d) barricades were thrown up, and 
.some firing was heard. 

Louis, alarmed, dismissed the Guizot ministry, and on the 24th issued a 
proclamation that Thiers and Odillon Barrot were to take the direction of 
affairs. It was too late. The troops gave up their muskets to the mob, 
the Tuileries were broken into, and a great bonfire was made of the throne 
and the royal carriages. Louis Philippe hurried through the private gar- 
den away to St. Cloud, to Versailles, and soon over to England. There 
he died at Claremui-i. (August 26, 1850). 

France was now a republic once more ; but the tumults of the change 
were not over. The Red Republicans, or violent democratic party, made 
several efforts to gain the upper hand, and renew the horrors of the guil- 
lotine, Especially, in June, there was a fierce struggle lasting five days, 
during which many thousands were slain in the streets of Paris. The 
firmness of General Cavaignac restored order and saved France. A new 
Constitution, vesting the executive power in a President of the Republic, 
who should be chosen by all the people, and should hold office for four 
years, was adopted on the 4th of November; and in December, Louis 
Napoleon, who had been in June elected deputy for the department of 
Seine, and had taken his seat, in September, on the benches of the National 
Assembly, was, by the votes of five millions and a half of the French peo- 
ple, elected President of the Republic 



OF HISTORY. 337 

He never agreed well with the Assembly, and it was sooti manifest thai 
one or other must be crushed. One night the president was in 
remarkably gay spirits in tlie brilliant ball-room of the Tuileries, Dec. 2^ 
chatting and laughing with all his guests. The carriages had 1851 
scarcely ceased to roll away, when bands of soldiers began to A.D. 
move silently through the streets. Next morning Paris was in 
the president's hands ; and the leaders of the Opposition, who had been 
seized in their beds, were fast locked within the walls of Vincennes. 

On all the walls of Paris a decree of Napoleon was posted, proclaiming 
that the Assembly was dissolved, that universal suffrage was restored, 
and that Paris was under martial law. This was the cotip d'etat of Decem- 
ber. On the 4th, some eight hundred of those who rose to resist the blow, 
/ell by the bullets of the soldiers. And on the 14th of the following 
January, a new Constitution placed in the hands of Louis Napoleon the 
government of France for ten years. The cry " Vive l' Empereur!" now 
began, after a silence of nearly forty years, to be heard again in France ; 
and, after wisely allowing the idea to leaven the public mind for nearly a 
year, the nephew of the little Corsican ascended the steps of an imperial 
throne, as Napoleon III., Emperor of the French (December, 1852), 

Since then, eight years have passed with no marked change in France. 
The Emperor married Eugenie, Comtesse de T^ba, in January, 1853, and 
his son is now sixteen years old. The share he took in the Russian war 
needs no remark ; and all must still remember the rapidly shifting scenes 
of that short campaign in the summer of 1859, when the Emperor Napo- 
leon in person led the French armies across the Ticino, won on the soil of 
Lombardy the brilliant fields of Magenta and Solferino, and concluded 
the mysterious peace of Villafranca. Savoy and Nice have since been 
annexed to France ; and Lombardy, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the 
Romagna, form part of the new Italian kingdom. 

Holland and Belgium. —After the abdication of Louis Napoleon in 
1 8 10, the Netherlands were annexed to the French empire ; and so' con- 
tinued until 1813, when the people rose, shook off the French yoke, and 
recalled the House of Orange to be their rulers. In 1815 the seven 
northern and the ten southern provinces were united under William I., 
into the Kingdom of the Netherlands. But the Belgians were kept down 
with too strict a hand, and when the French Revolution of 1830 took 
place, the men of Brussels, fired by the example of their neighbors, turned 
on the Dutch soldiers, and after four days' fighting, drove them from the 
city (August, 1830). Belgium was then declared free, and the people 
looked round them for a king. The Due de Nemours, second son of Louis 
Philippe, had the first offer of the newly-erected throne ; but the old 
French king refused it for his son. The crown was then offered to Prince 



338 GREAT EVENTS 

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who has worn it ever since. Antwerp 
was the only place still held by the Dutch. But a French army of sixty- 
five thousand men entered Belgium to enforce the will of the five great 
European Powers, that had acknowledged the independence of Belgium, 
and Antwerp fell after a month's siege. Belgium has thriven rapidly since 
this great change. 

Italy. — Austria, after the Congress of Vienna, hung like a millstone 
round the neck of Italy. The deadly weight was felt from the Alps to 
Spartivento. Austrians swarmed in the basin of the Po, and creatures of 
Austria wore the coronets of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma. When 'Pio 
Nono became pope in 1846, he began to make some useful changes among 
the people of the Papal States. The Austrians, alarmed at any signs of 
growing freedom, entered Ferrara in 1847, and all central Italy rose in 
arms against the tyrants. The following year saw the flame of revolution 
kindled in Lombardy. Radetsky and his Austrian soldiers were driven 
from Milan ; and Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, took the field against 
them. But the hour of triumph was short. Radetsky soon reconquered 
Lombardy and invaded Sardinia. Venice, too, had revolted, and had pro- 
claimed the Republic of St. Mark, but was retaken by the Austrians. 
There was war also in Sicily. In 1848 the well-meaning but feeble pope 
had to flee to Gaeta, and his people proclaimed a Roman Republic. This, 
however, was overthrown by a French army under Oudinot, by whom 
Rome was besieged and taken in the summer of 1849. 

The pope was then restored to his chair, but not to the hearts of the 
Romans. The great changes wrought in the fortunes of Italy during the 
year 1859 have been already glanced at. An Italian kingdom now exists, 
embracing Lombardy, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, the Romagna, and all 
Sardinia, except Savoy and Nice. Of Italian soil Austria now holds only 
Venetia. What may become of Sicily is yet in the future. The capture 
of Palermo, its capital, by the daring Garibaldi, is the last great event in 
the eventful history of Italy. 

While Germany, Prussia, and Denmark have been more or less convulsed 
by revolutionary movements, especially in the troubled years 1848 and 
1849, Sweden and Norway have been enjoying comparative calm.' 

The Greek war of independence, and the noble though unsuccessful 
struggle of the Hungarians against the rule of Austria, are the great 
events of the nineteenth century which remain to be noticed. 

Greece. — For more than three centuries the Turks had ground Greece 
in an unhappy bondage. The crushed worm turned at last. In March, 
1821, Major Ypsilanti, a Greek holding the commission of the Russian 
Czar, roused his countrymen to arms in Moldavia. He was met by whole- 
sale butchery ; his array was cut to pieces ; he fled to Trieste, where he 



OF HI STOP Y. 11^) 

was seized by the Austrians. The rage of the Turks was specially direct- 
ed against the Greek clergy, who were murdered by dozens. But the fire 
of revolution was kindled, and it spread fast. A ten years' war began. In 
1822 the Greeks met at Epidaurus to proclaim a provisional government 
under Alexander Mavrocordato. Vainly the Turks strove to quench the 
flames in blood. The fair island of Scio was wasted with fire and sword ; 
but this only roused the Greeks to greater fury. With fire-ships they 
greatly crippled the navy of the Turks, and on land they won the strong 
fortress of Napoli di Romania. 

Foremost among the patriot-Greeks were the brave Suliotes, a moun- 
tain tribe, whose leader, Marco Botzaris, met a soldier's death while repel- 
ling a Turkish attempt to break through the Isthmus of Corinth into the 
Morea. Byron flung his wasted energies into the Greek cause, and many 
of his songs, written under this inspiration, stir the heart like the blast of 
a trumpet. But his early death at Missolonghi, in 1824, deprived Greece 
of a devoted friend. Up to this time the government of Greece had been 
conducted with much disorder and irregularity. 

But now order began to develop itself. Taxes were justly levied ; the 
public credit was firmly established ; justice was administered ; the liberty 
of the press was allowed ; and education was promoted. To these good 
things there was, however, much opposition. A civil war arose, which 
greatly hampered the movements of the patriots. Tom by dissensions, 
the Greek councils and armies lost power. An addition to the Turk- 
ish force came from Egypt, under Ibrahim Pacha, who landed in the 
Morea and began at once a career of victory. The fall of Mis- 
solonghi, in April, 1826, seemed to lay the hopes of Greece in the dust 
forever. 

Yet this very hour of black darkness heralded the dawn of a new and 
brighter day. Christian Europe was roused from her neutrality. In the 
year 1827, three leading powers — Britain, France, and Russia — signed at 
London a treaty for the pacification of Greece. It was submitted to the 
Divan at Constantinople, but was haughtily rejected. Matters, indeed, 
looked bad for Greece. The Turks held all eastern and western Hellas ; 
there was disunion in the Morea ; the National Government had fled to 
Egina, and had chosen Count Capo d'lstria to be their president. 

At this crisis a British fleet appeared in the Greek waters, and was soon 
joined by French and Russian ships. The admirals demanded peace : 
and, when it was refused, they sailed into the harbor of Navarino, where, 
in a battle of four hours' duration, they utterly destroyed the Turkish- 
Egyptian fleet (October 20, 1827). In the following year a great Russian 
army crossed the Truth, and on the 20th of August, 1829, Adrianople. 
which lies only one hundred and thirty miles from Constantinople, fell 



340 



GREA T E VENTS 



before their victorious march. Blows like these forced the sultan to 
conclude the Peace of Adrianople, by which he acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of Greece. It then remained to settle the government of the 
newly freed land. Greece was raised into a kingdom, and the crown was 
conferred on Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He held it only three months, 
resigning on the ground that the Greeks were dissatisfied with his rule. 
Otho, a Bavarian prince, then (1832) received the vacant throne, but was 
driven from it in 1863. 

Hungary. — The Magyars, whose settlement in the basin of the Dan- 
ube has been already noticed, form the flower of the Hungarian nation ; 
they number about six millions, forming two-fifths of the population ; 
the remainder of which is made up chiefly of Croats, Servians, and other 
Sclavonic tribes. Much discontent was alive among the Magyars, owing 
to the attempts of Austria to destroy the nationality of Hungary ; and 
when the Servians and Croats showed a disposition to side with Austria 
m this design, war broke out between the Magyars and these Sclavonic 
tribes. Jellachich, ban or governor of Croatia, invading Hungary, mov 
ed upon the capital, Pesth, but was soon obliged to retreat. 

Foremost among the Hungarian patriots, whose eloquence roused the 
land to arms, was Lajos or Louis Kossuth, a man of noble parentage, who 
followed the profession of the law, and had already wielded a powerful 
influence over the nation as editor of the Pesti-Hirlap or Pesth yournal. 
Then an important change took place at Vienna. The Emperor Ferdi- 
nand abdicated in favor of his nephew, Francis-Joseph, whom the Hun- 
garians refused to receive as their king. This kindled the war in earnest. 
In December, 1848, the Austrian armies began to move by nine con- 
verging lines towards the capital of Hungary. Almost without a shot 
Pesth yielded to the Austrians, while Kossuth and the Parliament retired 
to Debreczin. The Hungarian armies were placed first under Dembinski, 
and then under Gorgei, whose fidelity to his country was more than suspect- 
ed. In April, 1849, he won a brilliant series of victories, which all but ex- 
pelled the Austrians from Hungary. But instead of following up these 
blows by marching on Vienna, he delayed to besiege Buda. Thus Vienna 
was saved. 

The Hungarian Diet then declared the land free (April 14, 1849), and 
appointed Kossuth governor of Hungary. Roused again by this daring 
step, Austria applied for aid to Russia. Early in June, four hundred 
thousand Austrians and Russians entered Hungary at Presburg. They 
were led by Marshal Haynau, whose name has become infamous on 
accoiint of his cruelties. He was the man who narrowly escaped with 
his life from the furious draymen of Barclay & Perkins, when he went 
to visit the brewery in London. On the 19th of July Haynau reached 



OF HISTORY. 341 

Pesth, where he wreaked his mean and brutal revenge on some of the 
high-spirited ladies of Hungary, whom he publicly flogged. 

Day after day the hopes of Hungary grew dim and dimmer, until the 
decisive battle of Temeswar, where the ammunition of the Hungarians ran 
snort, completely broke up the southern armv of the patriots (August 9, 
1849). 

Kossuth laid down his office, and Gorgei became supreme ; but this 
traitor made use of his power to betray his country. On the 13th of Sep- 
tember he surrendered with his whole army and all his cannon to the 
Russian general. It was a fearful day for Hungary, and all through :he 
ranks of the patriot army bitter curses were heard. One officer, snapping 
his sword in pieces, threw it at Gorgei's feet. Hussars shot their horses, 
and many regiments burned their banners rather than give them up to 
the foe. Kossuth gave himself up to the Turks at Widdin, and lay in 
various prisons till August, 185 1, when he was set free by the interven 
tion of England and America. Since then he has spent his time in the 
United States and in London, supporting himself and his family, partly 
at least, by the delivery of eloquent lectures. 

Poland has not been behind in her valiant struggles for liberty during 
this century. In 1830 the army of Warsaw declared in favor of the peo- 
ple, and the Diet soon declared the throne of Poland vacant. The 
Russians were beaten in the battle of Growchow, near Praga, with the 
loss of seven thousand men. They were yet more signally defeated at 
Ostrolenka (May, 1831) ; but the recapture of Warsaw by the soldiers of 
the czar, in September, blasted the budding promise of Poland's freedom. 
They made another serious struggle against their oppressors in 1846 ; and, 
during the late Russian war, their hopes were high that Britain and 
France would stretch out powerful hands to raise Poland once more to 
her ancient place among the thrones of Europe ; but the dream was not 
realized, and Poland still lies beneath the heel of Russia. 

The giant and still growing power of Russia, and the mysterious policy 
of the third Napoleon, who is the enigma of the day, are the sources 
from which the great wars of Europe, during the close of this nineteenth 
century, are likely to spring. Statesmen may well tremble for the 
balance of power, if Napoleon and the czar unite their strength. 

GREAT NAMES OF THE NINTH PERIOD. 

J. C. W. A. Mozart, born at Salzburg, January 27, 1756 — a great 

musician — lived much at Vienna — chief works, " Don Giovanni," and 

the celebrated " Requiem," the latter written on his death-bed — died 

of fever, December 5, 1792, aged 36. 

Jean Francois Marmontel, born at Bort, in Limousin, in 1723 — a 

14 



342 



GREAT EVENTS 



writer of dramas and romances — chief works, " Contes Moraux,' and 
" Belisaire" — died at Abbeville in 1799, aged 76. 

Friedrich Schiller, born at Marbach, on the Neckar, November lO, 
1759 — made Professor of History at Jena in 1789 — the great drama- 
tist of Germany— chief vv^orks, "William Tell," and " Wallenstein" 
— wrote also a " History of the Thirty Years' War" — died in May, 
1805, aged 46. 

Joseph Haydn, bom at Rohrau, near Vienna, March 31, 1732 — a great 
musical genius — father of modern orchestral music — greatest work, 
"The Creation," an oratorio — died 29th May, 1809, aged 77. 

Christopher Wieland, born at Oberholzheim, in Suabia, September 5, 
1733 — a leading German writer — chief poem, the epic romance of 
"Oberon," published in 1780 — best novel, " Agathon" — died January 
30, 18 13, aged 80. 

Chr. Heyne, born at Chemnitz, in Saxony, in 1729 — a great classical 
scholar — Professor at Gottingen — published editions of Homer, Virgil, 
Pindar, etc., etc. — died July, 1814, aged 85. 

Antonio Canova, born at Possagno, in the Venetian territory, Novem- 
ber I, 1757 — a great sculptor — famous for his portraits of Popes, his 
groups, " Cupid and Psyche," " Hercules and Lycas," the " Graces," 
etc. — died in October, 1822, aged 65. 

William Herschel, born at Hanover, November 15, 1738 — a great 
astronomer — came to England as a bandman in the Hanoverian 
Guards — improved the reflecting telescope — discovered Uranus in 
1781 — lived much at Slough, where he died, August 23, 1822, aged 84. 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, born in London, January 22, 1788 — 
one of the leading British poets — his chief work is " Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage," written in the stanza of Spenser — died at Missolonghi, of 
fever, April 19, 1824, aged 36. 

Carl-Maria Von Weber, born at Eutin, in Holstein, December, 1786 — 
a distinguished musician of the German school— his greatest work, 
" Der Freischdtz," was brought out in 1822 at Berlin — died in Lon- 
don, June 5, 1826, aged 40. 

LuDWiG Von Beethoven, born at Bonn, December 17, 1770 — a great 
musician — among his many works may be named the " Mount of 
Olives," an oratorio, and " Fidelio," an opera — died March 26, 1827, 
aged 57. 

Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771 — famed as a 
poet, and still more so as a novelist — began with a translation of Biir- 
ger's " Leonora" and the " Wild Huntsman" — chief poems, " Lady of 
the Lake," and " Lay of the Last Minstrel" — died September 12 
1832, aged 6t. 



OF HISTORY. 



343 



JOHANN Wolfgang Von Gothe, born at Frankfort on the Maine, 
August 28, 1749 — one of the most glorious names of Germany — chief 
works, " Werther," Wilhelm Meister," and "Faust" — died in 1832, 
aged 83. 

Barthold George Niebuhr, born at Copenhagen, August 27, 1776 — • 
a great historian — lectured at Berlin and Bonn — chief work, his 
"History of Rome" — died January 2, 1831, aged 55. 

George, Baron Cuvier, born at Montb^Iiard, in Doubs, August 23, 
1769 — remarkable as a naturalist — chief works, his " Fossil Bones," 
and the " Animal Kingdom" — died May 13, 1832, aged 63. 

Charles Nodier, born at Besan9on, in France, April 29, 1780 — a poet 
and general writer — his " Napoleone," " Jean Sbogar," and " Therese 
Hubert," are well known — died January 27, 1844, aged 64. 

Felix Mendelssohn, born at Hamburg, February 3, 1809 — a musician 
of the highest genius — chief works, his music for the " Midsummer 
Night's Dream," and his sublime oratorios, " St. Paul " and " Elijah " 
— died November 4, 1847, aged 38. 

Johann Neander, born at Gottingen, Januaiy 15, 1789 — Professor of 
Theology at Berlin — chief works, his " History of the Christian 
Church," and " Life of Christ" — died 1850. 

Pierre Jean De Beranger, born at Paris, August 19, 1780 — a noted 
lyric poet of France — he published five collections of songs — died 
1857. 

Alexander, Baron Von Humboldt, bom at Berlin, September 14, 1769 
— the greatest descriptive naturalist of our day — chief work, his 
" Kosmos," an account of the physical phenomena of the universe — 
died in 1859. 

Leopoijd Ranke, bom at Wiehe, in Prussian Saxony, December 21, 1795 
— a great historian — professor at Berlin — chief work, " History of 
the Popes." 

Justus, Baron Von Liebig, born at Darmstadt, May 8, 1803 — a great liv 
ing chemist — professor at Munich — has written much on the chemis- 
try of agriculture and physiology. 

Christian Godfrey Ehrenberg, bom at Delitsch in Pmssian Saxony, 
April 19, 1795 — a famous naturali?t and microscopist — chief work on 
" Infusorial Animalcules." 



TENTH PERIOD. 

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 



CHAPTER I. 

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861. 

Causes of the War— Slavery— Tariff— Love of power by the leaders of the South- 
Disunion unpopular — Mr. Quincy spoke of disunion as a probable event — Disunion advocated 
by New England — Hartford convention— Disfavor of the people towards the members of 
the Hartford convention — Opposition to the admission of Missouri — Nullification in. South 
Carolina — Convention to form a government — Davis made president. 

The United States was undisturbed by wars of great importance from 
the peace of 1815 to the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, a period of 
forty-six years. In that interval, her commerce was carried to every 
part of the world ; her population increased from eight millions to thirty 
millions. The country was intersected, in all directions, by canals, rail- 
roads, and telegraph lines, affording communication, and direct and rapid 
transit, with the most remote parts of the nation. 

The causes of the war are variously understood ; some attribute it to 
the antagonistic sentiments held by the people of the Northern States and 
those of the South on the subject of slavery. A large majority opposed 
the spread of slavery, and, therefore, favored laws to prohibit its introduc- 
tion into the Territories, while the inhabitants of the slave-holding States 
saw in that restriction a final end to the institution ; and an " irrepressi- 
ble conflict" arose. 

Another cause was found in the different interests of the two sections. 
The Southern States favored free trade, while the North advocated a high 
tariff. The North had manufacturers to protect, while the exports of the 
South were wholly agricultural. 

Still another reason is given, viz. : The leaders of the South found their 
power waning, and their ambition and love of rule led them to lay hold 
of the slavery and tariff questions, hoping so to divide the nation as to 
be able to set up a separate government, with slaveiy and free trade as 
the chief corner-stones, believing that the Western States would set up 
on the basis of free trade. 



OF HISTORY. 345 

By the masses the very thought of disunion was regarded as treason. 
The subject had been broached from time to time in Congress, but was 
always met with indignation. Massachusetts and South Carolina were the 
disturbing elements in nearly every case. 

At the session of the nth Congress, in i8ir, the dissolution of the 
Union was spoken of for the first time by a member from the State of 
Massachusetts, as a possible event of the future. The manner in which 
this was recei\'ed by that Congress seemed to indicate that it was looked 
upon by them almost with sentiments of abhorrence. The circumstances 
are interesting at this time. The bill to form a Constitution and Stale 
government for the territory of Orleans, and the admission of svich State, 
under the name of Louisiana, into the Union, was under consideration. 

Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, in opposition to the bill, said : " I am 
compelled to declai-e it as my deliberate opinion, that if this bill passes, 
the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved ; that the States which 
compose it are free from their obligations ; and that, as it will be tke 
right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a 
separation, amicably, if they can, violently, if they must. 

Mr. Quincy was here called to order by Mr. Poindexter. 

Mr. Quincy repeated and justified the remark he had made, which, 
to save all misapprehension, he committed to writing, in the following 
words : " If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually 
a dissolution of this Union ; that it will free the States from their moral 
obligation ; and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of 
some, definitely to prepare for a separation, amicably, if they raw, violent- 
ly, if they mttsi." 

Occasionally the subject was alluded to in the progress of time, until 
it was regarded as a deed to be abhorred, but yet, such as might be both 
possible and necessary under some circumstances of wrong and op- 
pression. 

The war with Great Britain in 1812 was so destructive to the 
commercial interests of the New England States, that they, to a great 
extent, withheld and refused their co-operation with the Federal Govern- 
ment. In Massachusetts, the State authorities took decisive measures to 
prevent the Federal Government from obtaining volunteers. Separation 
from the Union was discussed and advocated. 

Finally, public sentiment became so strong that a convention was held 
at Hartford, in the State of Connecticut. It was convened to considei 
the state of affairs, and to devise a remedy. 

What its view of public affairs might be, and what would be the remedy 
it might suggest, was too well known to the public to admit of a doubt. Its 
sessions, like those of the conventions in the seceding States, were held 



346 GREAT EVENTS 

in secret, or with doors closed against every one except members of the 
convention. 

Whatever were tne recommendations of this, body, no public action 
took place upon them, in consequence of the cessation of hostilities, and 
the speedy conclusion of peace with Great Britain. 

The result of this convention was to recognize and reaffirm the prin- 
ciple or doctrine which had hitherto been unofficially, and only by indi- 
viduals, announced, that a separation of the States or a dissolution ol 
the Union, or rather a withdrawal of a State or States from the Union, 
could, under some circumstances, be rightful and just. Thii justification 
would be found to arise from acts of oppression and wrong persistently 
enforced by the Federal Government. 

So slow were the people of the United States to recognize the right of 
revolution as against their own admirably formed system of government, 
and so attached and loyal were they to this system of government, that the 
members of the convention at Hartford were ever after refused all public 
favor, and carried with them the frowns of the people down to their graves. 

The institution of domestic slavery had always been repugnant to a 
large number of conscientious persons in the Northern and Southern 
States, but more extensively in the former. Upon the application of the 
State of Missouri to become a member of the Union in 1819, opposition 
was made, which was based upon hostility to the extension of the institu- 
tion of slavery. At this time the strife ran so high as to present to the 
consideration of the people the question of a separation of the States, and 
render it more familiar to their minds. This difficulty was satisfactorily 
adjusted. 

The subject now disappeared from the public mind until the years 
1831 and '32, when the State of South Carolina took the ground that the 
tariff act passed by Congress in 1828, was not only unconstitutional, but 
so unjust and oppressive in its operation against her, that it should not 
be executed within her limits. The issue joined in this case did not 
present the true point involved. 

It became a question of strength between the Federal Government and 
the State. The State herself was divided in sentiment. The Federal 
Government made concessions, and all open signs of strife disappeared. 
In this instance, the acts of oppression and wrong could not be stated in 
precise words, nor estimated in figures. They were not of such a positive 
and flagrant character that the world could see or comprehend them. 
Hence the course of South Carolina at that time has not been approved 
by the sentiment of mankind. 

By this difficulty a great stride was taken towards a solution of the 
problem of a separation of the States. The State and the Federal 
Government reached the actual borders of a violent struggle. 



OF HISTORY. 347 

At .this time, political agitation for the abolition of slavery com- 
menced. This brought out, in 1835, political agitation for its defense and 
protection. Small and insignificant at first, this contest grew into a terri- 
fic flame. The latter party always asserted that under a just and strict 
administration of the government according to the Constitution, their rights 
were safe, and slavery, as an institution, could not be essentially damaged. 

At the same time, they boldly and fully declared that, if the time 
should ever come when they should be convinced that they could not re- 
tain their rights as slaveholders, and slaveholding States, within the 
Union, and under the administration of the Federal Government, they 
then should seek those rights and that protection without the Union. In 
other words, a separation or dissolution of the Union was to be the alter- 
native of the triumph of one side, and the defeat of the other. With an 
astonishing indifference, apparently, the mass of the people witnessed 
this contest. It can be explained only upon the supposition, that the at- 
tachment to the Union of all the States was so great, and its civil and 
social advantages so conspicuous, that none were ready to believe a seri- 
ous purpose for its destruction could be formed. 

Finally, on the 4th of November, i860, the issue was decided. The 
political agitators for the limitation or abolition of slavery, triumphed 
over the political agitators for its defense and protection. 

The latter party immediately took the steps which they believed to be 
necessary to carry out their long-threatened purpose. It may not be alto- 
gether out of place in these pages to ask if they were justified in begin- 
ning these proceedings ? 

In answer it may be asked if the slaveholding States were suffering at 
that time, under the hand of the Federal Government, such oppression 
and such wrongs as justify the exercise of the sacred right of revolution? 
Did they fear the speedy infliction of such wrongs as would justify the ex 
ercise of the right of revolution ? 

This question is asked on the presumption that the apprehension of 
wrongs and oppression will justify revolution ; and, for the sake of the ar 
gument, let it be granted. On this question turns the whole case.. Did 
they fear and apprehend these wrongs? and were their fears just and well 
foimded ? The debates at the second session of the 37th Congress contain 
the views of Southern Senators and Representatives. According to these 
statements, such were their fears and apprehensions. South Carolina, af 
ter adopting an ordinance of secession, issued a declaration of grievances 
which embodied a statement of injuries she had suffered. 

The first public act which took place having for its ultimate object the 
formation of a Southern Confederacy, was the call for a State Convention 
in South Carolina. This resulted in the secession of that State, and was 
followed rapidly by the secession of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Geor- 
gia, Louisiana, and Texas. 



348 GREAT EVENTS 

On the secession of the State of Georgia, one of her citizens used this 
language : 

" Posterity will regard this act as wanting in statesmanship, and the 
greatest folly ever committed by a great and prosperous people. But un- 
due prosperity begets luxury and restlessness, and grave deeds are often 
committed without reflection or reason. Posterity will censure the act of 
secession, for the reason that the seceding States, in their several Conven 
lions, made no demands for the redress of grievances, but madly — ^yca, 
blindly — precipitated a revolution. To stand justified in the eye of the 
future, and before the scrutiny of civilization, we should demand redress 
in a Convention of all the States." 

On the 19th of January a committee in the Mississippi Legislature re- 
ported a series of resolutions to provide for a Southern Confederacy and 
the establishment of a Provisional Government. On this same day Gov- 
ernor Pickens, of South Carolina, sent by telegraph the following dis- 
patch to the Commissioner A. B. Jackson, from that State to Mississippi : 
" Please urge Mississippi to send delegates to the Montgomery meeting 
of States, at as early a day as possible — say 4th of February — to form im- 
mediately a strong Provisional Government. It is the only thing to pre- 
vent war, and let that convention elect immediately a commander-in- 
chief for the seceding States." 

The State Conventions of South Carolina and Alabama urged the Mont 
gomery Congress, and hence, in the conventions of all the seceding States, 
delegates were appointed to this Congress. Among others was Howell 
Cobb, of Georgia, who resigned his position of Secretary of the Treasury 
of the United States, on the loth day of December, i860. Their first 
duties consisted in preparing a form of organization for themselves and 
the States which they represented. This resulted in a Provisional Con- 
stitution, to continue in operation for one year. 

Under this Constitution, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected 
President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President. On 
the i6th of February, Mr. Davis arrived at Montgomery, to be inaugu- 
rated and to enter upon the duties of his office. He was greeted with an 
ovation, to which he responded in an address reviewing the position of 
the South, he said in substance as follows : 

The time for compromise had passed, and that the South was deter- 
mined, at all hazards, to maintain her position. He went on to say that 
if other States wished to join the Confederacy they were at liberty to do so, 
upon the terms laid down. But the separation from the old Union he de- 
clared to be perfect, and that no compromise nor reconstruction was to ba 
entertained. 

At the outbreak of secession, the standing army of the United States 
consisted of a few thousand men, scattered over the country in small 



OF HISTORY. 349 

bodies. Of this small force less than a hundred were garrisoning Fort 
Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, under the command of Major Anderson. 
Immediately after the act of secession was passed in South Carolina, 
Beauregard ordered Anderson to surrender. Anderson, finding Moultrie 
less tenable than Sumter, moved his force to the latter, and waited for sup- 
plies and reinforcements. 

Preparations were made to send supplies to Major Anderson, The 
governor of South Carolina was notified of this intention, and General 
Beauregard, commander of the forces of the seceded States, which were 
then assembled at Charleston, was instructed by the Confederate Secre- 
tary of War to demand an immediate evacuation of the Fort, and in cast 
the demand was not complied with he was ordered to proceed to batter it 
down. At two P.M., on the nth of April, 1861, General Beauregard sent 
a demand to Major Anderson to surrender. 

The Major replied that it was a demand with which his sense of honor 
and his obligation to his government would not allow him to comply. 

On the following morning, April 12th, 1861, at half-past four o'clock, 
General Beauregard opened fire on the Fort, and kept it up till about two 
P.M. on the 13th, at which time Major Anderson, finding his ammunition 
nearly exhausted, and the interior of the Fort on fire, signaled his wil- 
lingness to make terms of evacuation, and was allowed to march out with 
arms and colors. In this conflict, which lasted more than thirty hours, 
not a man was slain on either side. 

On the 15th of April, immediately after the surrender of Fort Sumter, 
President Lincoln issued his message, calling forth the militia of the 
several States of the Union to the aggregate number of seventy-five 
thousand. This was after an act of hostility had been committed under 
the authority of the Confederate government, and forty days after the Con- 
federate Congress had passed an act to raise a Iq-xcq of loo.ooo men. 



3 50 GREA T E VENTS 

CHAPTER II. 

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861 {cojttinued). 

Effects of the capture of Fort Sumter— Battle of Bull Ruu— Army enlarged— -Condition of 
the belligerents at the end of 1863 — Emancipation Proclamation— General Grant made 
commander-in-chief— The war in Virginia — Sherman's operations in Georgia— Sherman's 
march to the sea—Grant's fighting and mantauvring- Lee's surrender. 

The capture of Fort Sumter acted on the country like magic. The 
President issued a call for seventy-five thousand troops ; and three hun- 
dred thousand volunteers enrolled themselves for the defense of the Union. 

The Confedera.te army marched towards Washington, and the Goveru- 
ment collected its forces there to defend the nation's capital. 

The seceded States seized all the forts and United States property in 
their limits, including the navy-yard at Norfolk, Va., and the armory at 
Harper's Ferry ; and made Richmond their seat of government. 

In July, the Government troops advanced, under orders of General Scott. 
General McDowell having command, and on the 21st met the Confederal* 
army at Bull Run, about thirty-five miles from Washington, where the 
first great conflict of the war took place. 

After several hours of fighting, the contestants being nearly equal, hav- 
ing about twenty thousand men on each side, a reinforcement arrived 
from the South, and secured the victory for the Confederates. 

The Union army was put to flight, with a loss of over three thousand 
killed and captured. The reported loss of the enemy was less. 

This first battle revealed to the Government the earnestness and for- 
midable character of the Civil War, and showed the necessity for a larger 
army. At once Congress provided for its enlargement, by ordering five 
hundred thousand men to the field, and made an appropriation of $500,- 
000,000 to prosecute the war. 

General McClellan was put in command, and applied himself vigorously 
to organizing the army. 

By the end of the first year the Government had succeeded in hemming 
in the South, by blockading the coast, and taking possession of Maryland 
and West Virginia. The great battle of Bull Run had been won by the 
South, while, in the lesser battles that occurred, the opposing parties were 
about even in their successes. 

The beginning of 1863, the second year of the war, found the Govern- 
ment in possession of an eff"ective army of five hundred thousand men, 
and a navy which pretty effectually protected the coast. The Confederacy 
had less than four hundred thousand men in the field. The South moved 
from a centre, while the North had the disadvantage of working towards 



OF HISTORY. 351 

the centre from without ; a condition of things making operations more 
difficult, and requiring far greater numbers. 

During the year important battles were fought. The Confederates made 
a raid under Bragg, in Kentucky, carrying off large droves of cattle, horses, 
and mules. 

Lee invaded Maryland, and was defeated and driven out by McClellan. 
The battles of the Shenandoah Valley, on the Peninsula, Cedar Mountain, 
and the bloody encounter at Fredericksburg, all terminated in favor of 
the South, 

The North, besides defeating Lee at Antietam, had taken New Orleans, 
.opened the navigation of the Mississippi river, and captured several forts 
and strongholds of the enemy. 

The Union army had during the year increased to over seven hundred 
thousand, while the Confedei'ate force had been reduced to about three 
hundred thousand. In the latter part of this year. General Burnside 
superseded General McClellan in the command of the army. 

The third year of the war was inaugurated by the Emancipation Pro- 
clamation. President Lincoln, on the ist day of January, 1863, declared 
the slaves in the seceded States free. 

The important events of this year, on the part of the Union, were the 
victories of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and the defeat and expulsion of 
Lee from Pennsylvania. 

The South, on the other hand, had taken Galveston, and gained the bat- 
tles of Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. 

In March, 1864, General Grant was put in command of the armies of 
the United States, and he at once put in operation a plan to destroy 
Lee's army and capture Richmond. The effective armies of the South 
were in Virginia and Georgia. Grant took the field in Virginia, and or- 
dered Sherman to Georgia. Sherman moved upon the enemy. The sum- 
mer was spent by Grant, in Virginia, in dreadful conflicts with Lee, while 
Sherman was fighting bloody battles with Johnson, in Georgia. Sherman, 
having cut off the supplies of the Confederate army at Atlanta, compelled 
the evacuation of the city. The Confederate General Hood then in- 
vaded Tennessee, and drove Thomas to Nashville, and besieged him there. 
After two weeks' inactivity, Thomas attacked Hood, and after a bloody 
battle, which lasted two days, Hood's army was destroyed. 

Sherman was now at liberty to march to the south, and commenced his 
celebrated march to the sea. He set out from Atlanta, on the i6th 
day of November, with an army sixty thousand strong, and reached Savan- 
nah in time to spend the Christmas holidays there, having marched three 
hundred miles through the enemy's countr)- in about five weeks. 

General Grant moved steadily on towards Richmond, suffering great 



352 



GREAT EVENTS 



losses in every encounter with Lee, yet pressing on. It is said that he was 
defeated in every battle he fought until he sat down before Richmond 
yet so persistent was he in the grand object before him, that, instead ot 
retreating after a disastrous battle, he pressed forward by a flank move 
ment, which gave him the name of " the great flanker." 

Sherman, in February, commenced his march from Savannah towards 
Richmond; Sheridan came down from the North through the Shenandoah 
Valley, and joined the army at Petersburg. Lee saw himself hedged in, 
and attempted to escape with the wreck of his army, amounting to forty 
thousand men. Grant ordered Sheridan in pursuit. This active cavalry 
commander pressed the rear of the retreating army, and finally, watching 
his opportunity, gained the front and made a stand. 

Lee, seeing that resistance was vain, surrendered his army on the gth 
day of April, 1865. 

This surrender was followed by that of all the branches of the Confed- 
erate army, and the flight of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Con- 
federacy. The great War of the Rebellion was ended. 

The wonderful spectacle was presented to the nations of the world, of 
the people of a Representative Republic volunteering to fight the bat- 
tles of their government against their own citizens, who had attempted to 
destroy the integrity of the nation. 

It also revealed the fact that nations have no friends, and especially 
democratic governments. 

In this great struggle more than a million of men were killed or per- 
manently disabled. About three billions of dollai-s was expended in carrying 
on the war, and property to an equal amount was destroyed, while the 
country lost the productive labor of about one and a half millions of men 
for four years, worth three billions more ; and, allowing one billion loss 
for the stagnation in trade duriiig the first years of the war, we shall 
have the enormous sum of ten billions of dollars for the cost of the Civil 
War. 



CHAPTER III. 

CAUSES WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 

Difficulty between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein— England and Germany interested— Prus- 
sia and Anstria interfere — Prussia and Austria divide and appropriate the duchies — 
Austria cedes her right to Prussia — Prussia complains that Austria does not act in good 
faith— The difficulties result in war — Prussia dictates terms of peace — Prussia annexes 
some of the German States — Gains territory and population. 
In the autumn of 1863, Frederic VII., King of Denmark, died, and 

the crown descended to female heirs. Schleswig-Holstein, which had 



OF HISTOR Y. 



353 



constituted up to that time a part of the kingdom of Denmark, claimed 
that as by their law the crown could not be worn by a woman, Prince 
Frederic was entitled to the succession. To this Denmark objected. 

The European powers, and especially England and Germany, became 
interested in this dispute, but the year closed leaving the question unset- 
tled. 

August 15, 1S55, Prussia and Austria (who had, independent of the 
German confederation, undertaken, as two great powers of Europe, to 
defend Schleswig-Holstein against the requirements of Denmark) agreed 
to divide the duchies, Austria taking Holstein, and Prussia Schleswig, 
and, immediately after, took military possession. 

The next year, on the 23d of August, Austria ceded to Prussia her 
right to Holstein, and gave up possession ; but was accused by Prussia 
of meddling with the political affairs of the duchy. And this difficulty, 
with other disagreements in the Germanic Confederation, produced a sharp 
diplomatic correspondence between the two powers. 

The disagreement of Prussia with Austria in the Schleswig-Holstein 
and the Federal German questions in 1866, led to complications which 
finally resulted in the arbitration of the sword. 

Prussia withdrew from the Germanic Confederation, and war com- 
menced between Prussia and Austria, involving some of the minor 
German states. In this war, known as the Seven Weeks' War, Prussia 
was marvelously successful, exceeding the boldest expectations. Her 
generals displayed most remarkable talents and ability ; her troops fought 
with most wonderful bravery ; the terrible efficiency of the needle-gun 
astonished the world ; and in less than sixty days Prussia found herself 
in a position to dictate the terms of a treaty of peace with Austria and 
the South German states. In this treaty Austria was required to re- 
nounce all connection with the Germanic Confederation ; to consent to 
a new Confederation under the leadership of Prussia ; and to make a 
complete and final session of all claims to Schleswig-Holstein. 

This treaty gave Prussia the leadership and ascendency in Germany, 
and raised her to the position of a first-class power. Her boundaries were 
extended, by the annexation of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Frankfort, 
and Schleswig-Holstein, adding 27,450 square miles of territory, and 
1,284,700 to her population. 



354 GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER IV. 

FRENCH AND GERMAN "WAR — jSyO. 

Bpain invites Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to accept the crown — France objects — Demandf 
of France on Prussia— Prussia refuses to accede— Leopold declines voluntarily — Franca 
not satisfied — France demands a promise in writing from King William — The king refuses 
- -French minister accosts the king in a public walk — Ministers recalled by both govem- 
Kcnts — Both nations commenced preparing for war — Declaration of war — England offers 
to mediate — The Pope also attempts to bring about a reconciliation— King William's reply 
to the Pope — Mediation not accepted— Publication of secret treaty— France denies having 
proposed the treaty. 

One of the most wonderful events of the nineteenth century, if not the 
most wonderful, was the late war between France and Prussia. It was won- 
derful in its oiigin, the cause being the slightest that was ever known to 
involve two nations in war. It was wonderful in the great rapidity with 
which large bodies of troops on both sides were brought into the field. 
Wonderful in the results, but most remarkable in the unexampled success 
of one party. 

Spain had been for some time in an unsettled state, with an empty 
throne, and on the 4th of July, 1870, invited Prince Leopold of Hohen- 
zollern to accept the crown. 

France had not been consulted, and the emperor believed it would oe 
damaging to French influence to have a German prince on the throne of 
Spain; and demanded that the invited prince should make a formal 
withdrawal. 

The Spanish minister stated to the French government that the prince 
had been chosen by the Spanish Provisional Government without consult- 
ing any nation. Notwithstanding this, France persisted in her demands that 
neither Leopold nor any other German prince should be a candidate for the 
Spanish throne. And the French minister at the court of Prussia was in- 
structed to demand of the king, who was at that time at Ems, to forbid 
Prince Leopold to accept the crown of Spain. This the king decidedly 
refused to do, on the ground that he had no right to exercise such au- 
thority over a Prince of Hohenzollern who was of age. The government 
of Prussia, at the same time, notified all her ministers to the neighboring 
governments, that the Prussian Government had no agency in selecting 
Prince I^eopold for the Spanish throne. 

Napoleon was not satisfied with the official declarations of the Spanish 
and Prussian Governments ; and war seemed imminent. On the I2th of 
July Leopold declined the honor the government of Spain had offered 
him ; this he did of his own accord. At this Europe drew a long breath, 
and thought all had been done that France required. 



OF HISTORY. 355 

France, however, was not so easily satisfied, and demanded that the 
King of Prussia should write with his own hand a letter to the Emperor 
of France, guaranteeing that no Prince of Hohenzollern should be in fu- 
ture a candidate for the crown of Spain. 

Count Bismarck refused to allow these extraordinary claims to be laid 
before the Prussian king. And Count Benedetti, the French ambassador, 
accosted the king in a public walk at Ems, and insisted upon a compliance 
with the French demands. The king was outraged, and indignantly re- 
fused to listen to him ; and the French minister was notified at once 
that the king would not allow himself to be approached again upon this 
subject. 

July 14th, Baron Von Werther was recalled from Paris, and Count 
Benedetti was ordered home from the Prussian court by his government, 
and the grandest war preparations commenced, accompanied with the 
highest enthusiasm in both nations, showing the most remarkable willing- 
ness on the part of the people to commence hostilities. The war spirit 
was not confined to Prussia, but, throughout the German states, both north 
and south, the people rose with most wonderful unanimity, justifying 
King William ; and the governments of the several states at once put their 
armies in motion towards the French frontier. 

Duke Grammont, in the Legislature of France, made a speech on the 
15 th of July, in which he pronounced the course Prussia had taken, un- 
satisfactory and insulting, and regarded it as a blow aimed at the honor 
and dignity of France. It was, he considered, a sufficient reason for 
war. 

The lower house appropriated $103,200,000, by a vote nearly unani- 
mous ; and the Senate passed the act by a unanimous vote ; and waited 
on Napoleon to thank him for his promptness in taking steps to sustain 
the dignity, and vindicate the rights and honor of the nation. 

France declared war, and on the 19th of July, 1870, the declaration 
was formally presented to Count Bismarck. The declaration rested upon 
three complaints. 

1st. King William insulted Count Benedetti, at Ems, by turning from 
him, and refusing to give him an audience; and the Prussian Government 
approved of the king's course. 2d. The refusal of the King of Prussia 
to compel Prince Leopold to withdraw his name as a candidate for the 
crown of Spain. 3rd. King William not only refused to compel Prince 
Leopold to withdraw from the candidacy, but he persisted in giving 
him liberty to accept the throne. 

England offered to act as a mediator, but neither Prussia nor France 
was willing to accept her interference, and preparations went on. An 
attempt to mediate was also made by the pope, in the following letter : 



356 GREAT EVENTS 

The Pope's letter to the King of Prussia. 
"Your Majesty: 

" In the present grave circumstances, it may appear an unusuai 
thing to receive a letter from me ; but, as the vicar on earth of God and 
peace, I cannot do less than offer my mediation. It is my desire to wit- 
ness the cessation of warlike preparations, and to stop the evils, their in- 
evitable consequences. 

" My mediation is that of a sovereign whose small dominion excites 
no jealousy, and who inspires confidence by the moral and religious influ- 
ence he personifies. May God lend an ear to my wishes, and listen also 
to those I form for your Majesty, to whom I would be united in the bonds 
of charity. 

" PIUS. 
"Given at the Vatican, July 22, 1870." 

King William's reply to the Pope. 

" Most August Pontiff : 

" I am not surprised, but profoundly moved at the touching words 
traced by your hand. They cause the voice of God and peace to be heard. 
How could my heart refuse to listen to so powerful an appeal ! 

" God witnesses that neither I nor my people devised or provoked war. 
Obeying the sacred duties which God imposes on sovereigns and 
nations, we take up the sword to defend the independence and honor of 
our country, ready to lay it down the moment those treasures are secure. 

" If your Holiness could offer me, from him who so unexpectedly 
declared war, assurances of sincerely pacific dispositions and guarantees 
against a similar attempt upon the peace and tranquillity of Europe, it cer- 
tainly will not be I who will refuse to receive them from your venerable 
hands, united as I am with you in bonds of Christian charity, and sincere 

friendship. 

" WILLIAM." 

On the 23d of July, the Emperor of the French issued the following 
Proclamation: 

"Frenchmen: 

" There are solemn moments in the life of peoples, when the 
national honor, violently excited, imposes itself with irresistible force, 
dominates all interests, and alone takes in hand the direction of the desti- 
nies of the country. 

" One of those decisive hours has sounded for France. Prussia, 
to whom, both during and since the war of 1866, we have shown the most 



OF HISTORY. 357 

conciliatory disposition, has taken no account of our good wishes and 
our forbearance. 

" Launched on the path of invasion, she has aroused defiance, every- 
where necessitated exaggerated armaments, and has turned Europe into a 
camp, where nothing but uncertainty and fear of the morrow reigns. A late 
incident has come to show the instability of international relations, and 
to prove the gravity of the situation. In presence of the new pretensions 
of Prussia, we made our protestations to be heard. They were evaded, 
and were followed on the part of Prussia by contemptuous proceedings. 
Our country has resented this with profound irritation, and immediately a 
cry for war resounded from one end of France to the other. It only re- 
mains to us to confide our destinies to the decision of arms. 

" We do not make war on Germany, whose independence we re- 
spect. Let us wish that the peoples who compose the great German natioiK 
ality, may freely dispose of their destinies. For ourselves, we demand the 
establishment of a state of affairs which shall guarantee our security and 
assure our future. 

" We wish to. conquer a lasting peace, based on the true interests of 
peoples, and to put an end to the precarious state in which all nations em- 
ploy their resources to arm themselves one against the other. The glorious 
flag which we once more unfurl before those who have provoked us, is the 
same which bore throughout Europe the civilizing ideas of our great revo- 
lution. It represents the same principles and inspires the same devotion. 
Frenchmen, I place myself at the head of that valiant army which is 
animated by love of duty and of country. 

" It knows its own worth, since it has seen how victory has accom- 
panied its march in the four quarters of the world. I shall take my son with 
me, despite his youth. He knows what are the duties which his name 
imposes upon him, and he is proud to bear his share in the dangers of 
those who fight for their country. 

" May God bless our efforts. A great people who defend a just 
cause are invincible. 

" NAPOLEON." 

An Imperial decree, dated July 23, appointed the empress Regent, dur- 
ing the absence of the emperor with the army. 

Napoleon did not offer the guarantees that Prussia demanded, hence 
the pope was not accepted as a mediator. 

The contiguous nations, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium, declared 
their intentions to observe a strict neutrality, and raised armies to en 
force it. 

Both France and Prussia published explanations of the cause of the 



358 GREAT EVENTS 

war ; each party charging the other with double dealing, and a want of 
truth. Count Bismarck published the statement that, in 1866, France 
proposed to Prussia that the German States should all be compelled to 
unite under Prussia, with the condition, that France be allowed to absorb 
Belgium. This treaty had been kept secret, until France declared war 
against Prussia, in 1870, when Bismarck caused it to be photographed 
and circulated, showing it to be in Benedetti's own handwriting, as follows : 

Secret Treaty. 

" His Majesty, the King of Prussia, and His Majesty, the Emperor of 
the French, judging it useful to bind closer the ties of friendship which 
unite them, and so confirm the relations of good neighborhood which happily 
exist between the two countries, and being beside convinced that, to attain 
this result, which is. moreover, of a kind to insure the maintenance of the 
general peace, it is far their interest to come to an understanding on the 
questions concerning their future relations, have resolved to conclude a 
Treaty to the following effect, and have, in consequence, nominated as their 
representatives the following persons, viz : 

" His Majesty, etc., 
" His Majesty, etc., 
who, after exchanging their full powers, which have been found in good 
and due form, have agreed on the following Articles : 

" Art. I. His Majesty, the Emperor of the French, acquiesces in and re- 
cognizes the gains made by Prussia in the course of the last war, waged by 
her against Austria, and that Power's allies. 

" Art. II. His Majesty, the King of Prussia, engages to facilitate the 
acquisition by France of Luxemburg ; and for this purpose. His Majesty 
will enter into negotiations with His Majesty, the King of the Netherlands, 
with the view of inducing him to cede his sovereign rights over the Duchy 
to the Emperor of the French, on the terms of such compensation as shall 
be judged adequate or otherwise. 

" The Emperor of the French, on his side, engages to assume whatever 
pecuniary charges this arrangement may involve. 

" Art. III. His Majesty, the Emperor of the French, shall raise no 
opposition to a federal union of the Confederation of North Germany with 
the states of South Germany, excepting Austria, and this federal union 
may be based on one common Parliament ; due reservation, however, being 
made of the sovereignty of the said states. 

" Art. IV, His Majesty, the King of Prussia, on his side, in case His 
Majesty, the Emperor of the French, should be led by circumstances to 
cause his troops to enter Belgium or to conquer it, shall grant armed 
aid to France, and shall support her with all his forces, military and naval, 



OF HISTORY. 359 

in the face of and against every Power which should, in this eventuality, 
declare war. 

" Akt. V. To insure the complete execution of the preceding conditions, 
His Majesty, the King of Prussia, and His Majesty, the Emperor of the 
French, contract, by the present Treaty, an alliance offensive and defensive, 
which they solemnly engage to maintain. Their Majesties bind themselves, 
besides and in particular, to observe its terms in all cases when their re- 
spective states, the integrity of which they reciprocally guarantee, may 
be threatened with attack ; and they shall hold themselves bound, in any 
like conjuncture, to undertake without delay, and under no pretext to de- 
cline, whatever military arrangements may be enjoined by their conimon 
interest conformably to the terms and provisions above declared." 

This treaty startled the European powers, and caused the most profound 
indignation. This was a master-stroke on the part of Prussia. The 
making public of this treaty robbed France of all sympathy, 

The French denied the initiative in this secret treaty, and charged 
Prussia with its authorship, though Benedetti acknowledged that he wrote 
it at the dictation of Bismarck. 

Benedetti's Denial. 

" Paris, yuly 29, 1870. 
" To the Minister of Foreign Affairs : 

" Monsieur le Due : 

" However unjust may have been the criticisms of which I was 
personally the object, when the fact became known in France that the 
Prince of Hohenzollern had accepted the crown of Spain, I did not feel 
called on to notice them, and, as was my duty, I left to His Majesty's 
government the care lof rectifying them. I cannot maintain the same 
silence in presence of the use which Count Bismarck has made of a docu- 
ment to which he seeks to assign a value it never possessed, and I ask 
permission from your Excellency to re-establish the facts in all their exacti- 
tude. It is a matter of public notoriety that the Chancellor offered to us, 
before and during the last war, to assist in re-uniting Belgium to France, 
in compensation for the aggrandizements which he aimed at, and which 
he has obtained for Prussia. 

"I might on this point invoke the testimony of the whole diplomacy 
of Europe, which vi'as aware of everything that was going on. The 
French Government constantly declined those overtures, and one of 
your predecessors, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, is in a position to give on this 
point explanations which would not leave any doubt subsisting. At the 
moment when the Peace of Prague was concluded, and in picsence of 
the excitement raised in France by the annexation of Hanover, Electo 



360 GREAT EVENTS 

ral Hesse, and the city of Frankfort to Prussia, Count Bismarck agaic 

testified the most ardent desire to re-establish the equilibrium broken by 
these acquisitions. 

" Various combinations respecting the integrity of the states bordering 
on France and Germany were suggested ; they became the object of 
several interviews, during which the Count always endeavored to make 
his personal ideas prevail. In one of those conversations, and in order to 
form a thorough comprehension of his intentions, I consented to tran- 
scribe them, in some sort, under his dictation. The form, no less than 
the substance, clearly demonstrates that I confined myself to reproducing 
a project conceived and developed by him. 

" Count Bismarck kept the paper, desiring to submit it to the king. On 
my side I reported to the Imperial Government the communications 
which had been made to me. 

" The Emperor rejected them as soon as they were brought to his 
knowledge. I ought to say that the King of Prussia himself appeared 
unwilling to accept the basis suggested, and since that period — that is 
to say, during the last four years — I have had no further exchange of ideas 
with Count Bismarck on the subject. 

" If the initiation of such a treaty had been taken by the Emperor's 
Government, the draft would have been prepared at the Ministry, and I 
should not have had to produce a copy in my own handwriting ; besides, 
it would have been differently worded, and negotiations would have been 
carried on simultaneously in Paris and Berlin. 

" In that case the Prussian Minister would not have contented himself 
with handing, indirectly, the text over to publication, especially at the 
moment when your Excellency was rectifying in the despatches which 
were inserted in the Journal Officiel, other errors which attempts were 
being made to propagate. But to attain his aim — that of misleading 
public opinion and forestalling any indiscretions which we might ourselves 
commit — he has adopted this expedient, which dispensed him from speci- 
fying at what moment, under what circumstances, and in what manner 
the document was written. He evidently entertained the idea of sug- 
gesting, owing to those omissions, conjectures which, while disengaging 
his personal responsibility, would compromise that of the Emperor's 
Government. 

" There is no need to qualify such proceedings ; to point them out an3 
deliver them to the judgment of the Tublic in Europe is sufficient. 

" Accept, etc., 

"V. BENEDETTI." 



OF HISTORY. 361 

OUivier alsi published the following note : 
Ollivier's Denial. 

" Paris, July 26, '70. 

"My Dear Friend : 

" How could you believe there was any truth in the Treaty the 
Times has published? I assure you that the Cabinet of the 2d of January 
never negotiated or concluded anything of the kind with Prussia. I will 
even tell you that it has negotiated nothing at all with her. The only ne- 
gotiations that have existed between us have been indirect, confidential, 
and had Lord Clarendon for their intermediary. Since Mr. Gladstone 
slightly raised the veil in one of his speeches, we may allow ourselves to 
say, that the object of these negotiations, so honorable to Lord Clarendon 
was to assure the peace of Europe by a reciprocal disarmament. 

"You will admit that this does not much resemble the conduct of Minis- 
ters who seek a pretext for war. You know the value I set upon the con- 
fidence and friendship of the great English nation. The union of the 
two countries has always seemed to me the most essential condition of the 
world's progress. And for that reason I earnestly beg you to contradict 
all those false reports spread by persons who have an interest in dividing 
us. 

"We have no secret policy hidden behind our avowed policy. Our 
policy is single, public, loyal, without arrieres pensees ; we do not belong to 
the school of those who think might is superior to right ; we believe, on 
the contrary, that right will always prevail in the end ; and it is because 
the right is on our side in the war now beginning, that, with the help of 
(iod, we reckon upon victory. 

" Affectionate salutations from your servant, 

(Signed) " EMILE OLLIVIER " 



CHAPTER V. 
FRENCH AND GERMAN WAR — 1870 — {Continued), 

Count Bismarck charges the French Ministers of falsehood— Napoleon's Proclamation— King 
William's Proclamation— Population of France— French Army at the breaking out of the 
■war — French commanders— Population of Germany — Strength of the German Army at the 
commencement of the war — Commanders of the German Army. 
Count Bismarck pronounced both the statements of Benedetti and 

Ollivier falsehoods, and charged Benedetti with proposing other secret 

treaties, to absorb or destroy the smaller governments of Europe. 
On the 28th of July Napoleon caused the following proclamation tc 

be published : 



362 GREA T E VENTS 

Proclamation of the French Emperor. 

" Soldiers : I have come to place myself at your head, to defend the 
honor and the soil of the country. You go forth to fight against one of the 
best armies in Europe ; but others of equal excellence have been unable 
to resist your bravery. It will be so now. The war which is commenc- 
ing will be long and difficult, for its seat will be places bristling with 
obstacles and fortresses ; but nothing is beyond the persevering efforts of 
the soldiers of Africa, the Crimea, China, Italy, and Mexico. 

" Once again you will show what can be done by a French army ani- 
mated by the sentiment of duty, sustained by discipline, fired by love of 
country. 

" Whatever road we may take beyond our frontiers, we shall find there 
the glorious traces of our fathers. We shall prove ourselves worthy of 
them. All France is following you with ardent wishes, and the eyes of 
the world are upon you. 

" The fate of liberty and civilization depends upon our success. Sol- 
diers, let each of us do our duty, and the God of battles will be with us. 

" NAPOLEON. 

" Imperial Headquarters, Metz, July 28, 1870." 

On the 31st day of July, the King of Prussia issued the following pro- 
clamation, and set out for the front : 

King William's Proclamation. 

" To my people : — On my departure to-day for the army, to fight with 
it for Germany's honor, and the preservation of our most precious pos- 
sessions, I wish to grant an amnesty for all political crimes and offences, 
in recognition of the unanimous uprising of my people at this crisis. I 
have instructed the Minister of State to submit a decree to me to this effect. 

" My people know with me that the rupture of the peace and the pro- 
vocation to war did not emanate from our side. 

" But, being challenged, we are resolved, like our forefathers, plac- 
ing full trust in God, to accept the battle for the defense of the Father- 
land. 

"WILLIAM." 

The population of France at the outbreak of the war, was 38,000,000. 

The strength of the army on October i, 1869, the year before the war, 
was 434,356, made up as follows : On duty in France, 365,179 ; in Africa, 
63,925 ; in Italy 5,252. This number, in a marvellously short time aft'-r 
the declaration of war was increased to 600,000, with 169 batteries, and 
IC14 pieces of artillery. 

At the commencement of the war the commanders were ; 



3^3 



OF HISTORY. 

CHAPTER VI. 

FRENCH AND PRUSSIAN WAR 187O. 

BATTLES NEAR UETZ. 

Battle of Metz— Battle of Mars-La-Toar— Battle of Gravelotte— Battle of BazeQles— Battl« 
before Sedan— Surrender of KacMahon and the emperor— Articles of oapitolation. 

On the 14th day of August, the first great battle took place near the city 
of Metz, This bloody encounter took place on Sunday. The French 
army near Metz numbered about 230,000. The Prussians, with 440 000 
men, advanced upon the French in three columns. The battle is de- 
scribed as follows : 

" At five o'clock the whole line is engaged. L'Admirault and De Caen 
show a determined front on the right, at Bomey, Grigy, and Colomberg, 
and battle obstinately at every point L'Astron advances impetuously 
against Colomberg from the south. The slaughter is terrible ; every 
storming party seems to advance into the jaws of death. The conflict 
grows hotter. The whole seventh corps is engaged — Glumer, Kamecke, 
and Wc/aar, Eight batteries pour an incessant stream of shot and shell 
upon Co^oinberg. Every advance of the Prussians is met with an equally 
hot fire from the French. Woynac storms the French right near Colom- 
berg. It is a fearful advance. The French fire sweeps the German lines 
with deadly precision. These, however, are filled up, as if the North gave 
out heroes at call. 

" The deep rumbling growl of the mitrailleuse, the roar of the heavy 
guns from the outworks of the fortifications, the spiteful spitting of the 
chassepot, and the cutting ring of the needle-gun bullets, is said by the 
officers to have been something truly infernal ! The attack is repulsed. 
Again the Germans form and advance over the field strewn with dead 
brothers. It is the advance of Lee upon the left centre at Gettysburg 
but with a better result. 

"Weary and decimated, the brave French give way. There is a shoul 
of victory from the Prussian left, and the Ostend brigade occupy the wood 
covering Colomberg. The French right is defeated, and L' Admirault falls 
back upon the guns of Fort Quelen, commanding with seventeen guns 
the south of Metz. 

" Towards evening. General Frossard decided to make one more attach 
on the Prussians to the north. This last resort was an offensive move- 
ment to turn the Prussian left towards .Serigny. The first corps met the 
French with sturdy courage, and then Manteuffel ordered a bold advance 
against Frossard. 

15 



364 GREAT EVENTS 

"The onslaught was bloody. It was the last struggle of the giants. 
Crippled, decimated, and defeated, the French recoiled upon Neuilly, and 
then behind the guns of Bellecroix. Night threw a veil over the thou- 
sands slain, and darkness closed the fight." 

The Prussians had 80,000 men in the engagement, with a reserve ol 
4.0,000, and 125 pieces of artillery. The French force engaged num- 
bered 60,000, and 30,000 reserves, and 150 pieces of artillery. It was • 
most bloody slaughter. The Germans lost 4,000, and the ITench 2,000. 

Battle of Mars-la-Tour. 

On the i6th, two days after the battle last described (Napoleon having 
left Metz and established his headquarters at Gravelotte, on the 15 th) 
another terrific and bloody battle occurred, at Mars-la-Tour, near Metz. 
This was the first battle in which the French fought the Germans in the 
open field. At all previous encounters the French had defenses, but in this 
battle they had no time to make entrenchments. 

The battle was brought on by the Germans, who supposed Bazaine had 
retreated, and that they were assailing only his rear guard. The German 
force was about 80,000, while the French was about 130,000 strong. 
Notwithstanding this great disparity in numbers, the Germans fought 
eight hours. As night approached the Germans began to see that their 
ranks were so thinned that they must retire from the combat. But, just 
before dark. Prince Charles arrived with reinforcements. His arrival has 
been compared to the coming of Sheridan at Winchester, for, like that 
dashing cavalryman, he had ridden sixteen miles, and came up just in 
time to save a defeat. 

On the arrival of reinforcements the Germans renewed their assaults, 
and the havoc went on. The French fought fiercely, no less bravely than 
the Germans ; every inch of ground they yielded was piled with the dead 
bodies of German horses and men. The loss on the German side was not 
less than 16,000 men. The Prussian report of killed and wounded 
was 676 officers and over 15,000 men, and nearly 2,000 horses 

Battle of Gravelotte. 

The French and German forces were glad to rest on the 17th, the day 
after the bloody battle of Mai-s-la-Tour. 

On the i8th, at eight o'clock in the morning, the Prussians attacked the 
French lines at Gravelotte, having placed themselves between the French 
forces and Paris. They fought with such skill and determination that they 
forced the French from all their positions, cut off their retreat towards 



OF HISTORY. 365 

Paris, and compelled them to take shelter at Metz. It is estimated that 
the French lost in this battle i3,ooo, and the Germans 25,000. 

King William telegraphed to the queen at nine o'clock p.m. " The 
French army, occupying a very strong position to the west of Metz, was 
to-day attacked under my leadership, and after nine hours fighting, was 
completely defeated, cut off from its communications with Paris, and driven 
back towards Metz." 

Here again the mitrailleuse, the chassepot, and the terrible needle-gun 
dealt death in every direction, and of the gallant bands who that morning 
with high hopes went into battle, more than 40,000 were killed or maimed. 
It was a favorite sentiment a few years since, that the time had gone by 
when enlightened nations would be obliged to settle their differences on 
the battle- field. But the American Rebellion and this most wonderful 
war, have exploded this pleasant doctrine. 

Bazeilles and Sedan. 

After the bloody battle last described, the Emperor Napoleon moved to 
Chalons, on the 19th of August, and on the 23d, four days afterward, he, 
with the young prince and General MacMahon, were in Rheims. Thence 
they moved to Rethel. 

MacMahon attempted to move his army towards Metz, to form a junc- 
tion with Bazaine, but did not succeed, as the Germans had anticipated 
such an event, and kept a large force between his army and Metz. At 
Beaumont, the Germans attacked the French, and defeated a corps ; this 
checked the progress of MacMahon, and gave the Germans time to bring 
up their divisions so as to surround him, cutting off both .his retreat towards 
Paris, and his advance to Metz. Surrounded on the south and west, and 
turned from Metz, he commenced his retreat upon Sedan, pressed hard 
by the Germans. Reaching Bazeilles, and finding himself in a favorable 
position for giving battle, he made a stand, and a fierce contest took place, 
in which the French were beaten and driven back upon Sedan. The 
German troops now completely surrounded Sedan, and continually made 
the circumference of the circle smaller. The French fought with despera- 
tion, and the Germans pressed on with overwhelming numbers, and charac- 
teristic German persistence. In this battle, the Germans had 285,000 en- 
gaged, while MacMahon's army numbered 115,000 ; less than half that num- 
ber. The French, out-numbered two to one, were forced into Sedan, and 
the Germans commenced shelling the town. The Prussian king ordered 
the firing to stop, and sent an officer with a flag of truce, offering capitula- 
tion. He entered the city, and was conducted into the presence of the 
Emperor Napoleon. The French emperor asked what his orders were, 



366 GREAT EVENTS 

when he replied, that he had been sent to summon the army and fortress 
to surrender. 

He was referred to General Wimpffen, who had assumed the command 
in place of MacMahon, who had been disabled in battle. Napoleon di- 
rected a letter to King William, and offered him his sword. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BATTLE OF COULMIERS. 
The only one in which the French were victorious— Battle of Coolmiers— Capitulation of Meti 

The battle of Coulmiers, compared with the great battles, is of so in- 
significant a character that it would not merit mention here, were it not 
for the fact that it was the only one during this sanguinary war in which 
the French achieved a victory. The French army under Paladines num- 
bered 80,000 men. The German army numbered 25,000 and was under 
the command of Von der Tann. The battle commenced on the morning 
of the gth of November, and was waged till darkness brought it to a close. 
The Germans wore driven from the field, and most of their ammunition, 
baggage, and ambulance trains fell into the hands of the French. 

The losses on the part of the French, were 2,000 killed and wounded. 
The Germans lost 709. This was the first and only battle in which the 
Germans were defeated, and the only one in which they did not far out- 
number the French. 

Here they fought all day with three to one against them, and though 
beaten, they retired in good order into Orleans. 

Capitulation of Metz. 

On the 27th of October, Marshal Bazaine surrendered the stronghold of 
Metz, after a seven weeks' siege. 

Three marshals — Bazaine, Canrobert, and Lebeuf — fifty generals 
(amongst whom were Frossard, Decean, and L'Admirault), over 6,000 offi- 
cers, and 173,000 men, laid down their arms ; 400 pieces of artillery, 100 
mitrailleuses, and 53 eagles were taken ; 10,000 French troops, guarded 
by 1,600 Germans, were sent off per day through Saarlouis, whence they 
were sent on by rail to Treves. 

It is very singular that in the month of October, 1552, Metz was sur- 
rounded by German troops under the Emperor Charles V., and underwent 
a siege of precisely the same duration — seventy days — but with opposite 



OF HISTORY. 367 

results, for, at the expiration of that period, the German forces retired, 
baffied and defeated. 

We read tliat Metz, Toul, and Verdun, were wrested from Germany by 
Henry II. of France. Metz was taken from the Germans 318 years ago. 

Bazaine's Vindication. 

Marshal Bazine, in a letter written to the Echo die Nord of this date 
says: 

"I have read your political bulletin of the ist of November, in which 
you refer to M. Gambetta's proclamation. You are right ; the Army of 
the Rhine would not have obeyed a traitor. The only answer I shall make. 
to this lying lucubration is to send you the order of the day (already pub- 
lished) which was addressed to the army, after the councils of war held 
on the 26th and 28th of October. M. Gambetta does not seem to be 
aware of what he is saying, or of the position in which the Army of Metz 
was placed, when he stigmatises, as he does, its chief, who struggled for 
three months against forces double those at his disposal, and whose effec- 
tive strength was always kept up. 

" I received no communications from the government at Tours, notwith- 
standing the efforts made to place ourselves in relation. The army of 
Metz had i marshal, 24 generals, 2,140 officers, and 42,350 men struck 
by the enemy's fire, and it made itself respected in every fight in which it 
engaged. Such an army could not be composed of traitors and cowards. 
Famine and disorganization alone caused the arms to fall from the hands 
of the 65,000 real combatants who remained. The artillery and cavalry 
were without horses, it having been necessary to kill them to alleviate the 
privations of the army. Had the latter not displayed such energy and 
patriotism, it would have had to succumb in the first fortnight of October, 
when the rations were already reduced to 300 grammes, the latter on to 
250 grammes of bad bread. Add to this dark picture the fact of there 
being 20,000 sick and wounded, with their medicines on point of failing, 
and themselves suffering from the effects of the torrential rains. France 
has always been deceived as to our position. I know not why, but the 
truth will one day prevail. We are conscious of having done our duty." 

Conclusion. 
The war had two stages : the first terminated at the surrender of Na 
poleon and MacMahon's army at Sedan ; the second period filled up the 
interval from the surrender of the Emperor and the conclusion of peace. 
During the first, the war was carried on against the regular army of 
France, and resulted in its capture and removal of nearly all into Germany. 



368 GREAT EVENTS 

Bazaine and MacMahon moved into the Rhenish provinces with about 
300,000 men ; these were captured or shut up in Metz by the second day 
of September. 

After the capture of the Emperor, the French chambers passed acts de- 
posing Napoleon and forming a government of defense. 

The French forces in the field at this juncture, were widely scattered, a 
large body was near Amiens in the North, and another in the West under 
the command of General Paladines, relieved by Gambetta and succeeded 
by Chanzy, This force was divided, one part remaining under Chanzy, 
and the other was commanded by Bourbaki. The first was attacked and 
• routed by the Germans. Bourbaki moved with his division from Orleans 
to Bruges and Belfort, and after having been badly beaten, retreated with 
the demoralized remnant of his army into Switzerland. 

The movements of these amtiies were designed to direct and draw off 
the German armies besieging Paris, break through their lines, and relieve 
the city. They not only found themselves powerless to raise the siege 
Vmt they were speedily destroyed. 

Result. 

This most remarkable war terminated in the complete unification of 
Germany, and the most signal defeat of France — proud France, whom, a few 
years ago the nations feared and respected, now lies completely at the 
mercy of her rival Prussia. 

The causes of this defeat may be sought in the moral and intellectual 
condition of the people. The Empire under Louis Napoleon, had been 
for eighteen years preparing the nation for this terrible shock. 

It has been said that a " nation that builds forts instead of school-houses 
ought to be conquered." However true this may be, the erection of school- 
houses, and the spread of intelligence does not avert war. Religious men 
and especially a large class known as peace-men, who regarded war as the 
relics of a barbarous age were hugging the delusive doctrine, that the 
spread of intelligence and the principles of Christianity had forever ban- 
ished the possibility of war between civilized nations, while good men in all 
countries were willing to hope that the doctrine might be realized. The 
world was startled with the civil war in the United States of North America. 
And scarcely had they time to breathe before two of the most powerful and 
highly civilized nations of Europe were plunged into a bloody, devastating 
war. 

To attempt to account for a want of success of peace-doctrine, and to 
show why negotiations without resort to the sword cannot settle the diffi- 
culties between nations, is not the province of this brief article. Experi- 
ence, however, has shown that negotiation in settling the disputes of na- 



OF HISTORY. 369 

tions avails little, unless it is well seasoned with the means, to enforce 
demands, or to cripple the power or waste the substance of each other. 

It has been stated that the Empire of France under Napoleon, for years 
had been maturing, and preparing itself for its terrible end. Indeed it 
had become dead ripe, and had been for years in a state of decay at the 
core while the surface remained fair. 

Paris was France ; her walls, her impregnable fortresses, her broad boule- 
vards, made insurrection and barricades apparently impossible ; while mil- 
lions upon millions, wrested from a tax-ridden people, were wasted upon the 
support of a showy army, to erect splendid quarters for it, and to support a 
church organization which ought to be self-sustaining. Nothing was done 
for the masses. A splendid court, and splendid holiday shows, parades, 
and reviews, amused and diverted the simple-minded masses. Nothing 
was done to make the peasantry, and the lower classes in the cities more 
intelligent ; hence they remained the ready tools for any master. 

Though the masses were kept quiet, the educated and intelligent classes 
not immediately connected with the government, were uneasy and 
restive. From them a constant growl went up to the throne, and Louis 
Napoleon felt that he was over a volcano, which the first favorable circum- 
stance would explode ; hence France became a nation of spies. France 
could boast of learned men, and the sovereign encouraged savants to remain 
in the Empire, and offered mducements for others to come. But the con- 
gregation of a few philosophers and scientific men, cannot give a nation 
intelligence. Education must reach the masses. The people must be 
rendered intelligent and capable of being trusted. Napoleon had no 
confidence in the people ; paid spies and informers invaded the sanctity of 
the most private circles ; men became not only suspicious of their neigh- 
bors, but of their most intimate friends and relations, and lack of confi 
dence grew into a most formidable social evil. 

The so-called Plebiscitum was a gigantic farce, and its repetition be- 
came a fraud. A nation in this condition is not likely to possess the 
patriotism, the fortitude, and patient endurance necessary to carry on a 
a successful war. 

Yet Napoleon, either deceived as to the condition of his people, or want- 
ing the penetration and foresight which a great statesman and ruler ought 
to possess, plunged France into a war, in which she was beaten in every 
battle but one, lost her entire army, with vast amounts of stores, arms, am- 
munition, and other war material, and in six months was prostrate at 
the foot of her enemy. The nation in political and financial ruin, sad- 
dled with an enormous war debt, compelled to cede territory, and to pay large 
sums to Prussia for indemnification — thus we find France at the close 
of the war. 



370 GREAT EVENTS OF HISTORY. 

When the news that France had declared war upon Prussia reached us, 
the American press and the people very generally took sides with Prussia, 
denouncing Napoleon, considering the war altogether unprovoked and 
aggressive. But when the Emperor surrendered and France promptly 
deposed him and formed a republic, the tone of the press changed, 
every American heart rejoiced, and the right hand of fellowship was at 
once extended to our ancient friend and ally. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, 187O, TO THE 
PRESENT TIME. 

Prance— Nihilism— Czar— Qarfield— Grant —Washington Monmnent— Temples— Triumphal 
Arches— Eiffel Tower— Pyramids— Brooltlyn Bridge — Roman Bridges— Bridge of Trajan — 
Bridges of London— Bridge of Menai— Boycotting— Electricity— Gordon— Livingstone — 
Emin— Stanley— Chinamen— Brazil— Suez Canal — Panama Canal— Great Names of the 
Period— States Admitted to the Union— Disasters. 

The rehabilitation of France as a first-class power, under a republican 
form of government, was one of the most striking sequences of the war 
with Germany. Before the German army had yet withdrawn from the 
neighborhood of Paris, the populace of that city and of Lyons, disregard- 
ing the authority of the National Assembly, which had been convened to 
make peace, attempted to set up Communal governments, in which the 
principles of local rule and decentralization were to have found expres- 
sion. It was supposed that if France could be broken up into semi- 
independent communities, the people of other states would follow her 
example^ and a new political era would set in. France, however, was 
not willing to make such a dangerous experiment ; and the Commune at 
Lyons was soon put down. That at Paris resisted the army which M. 
Thiers had gathered at Versailles under Marshal McMahon, and was 
only crushed after severe fighting and the destruction of many public 
monuments, among them the Tuileries palace and the Vendome column. 
This insurrection quelled, and the new government more firmly established, 
the Germans, who had been onlookers while the war of the Commune 
lasted, retired; and the French, after many vacillations, succeeded in 
agreeing upon a republican constitution. Meanwhile, the enormous trib- 
ute exacted by the Germans as indemnity was rapidly paid up, affording 
a remarkable proof of the recuperative powers of the country. 

During the last hundred years no nation has furnished so much interest- 
ing material for the historian's pen as the French people. 

The Revolution, which drifted into the Reign of Terror, the natural off- 
spring of the most corrupt and oppressive rule with which a nation was 

371 



372 GREAT EVENTS 

ever cursed, was succeeded by a republic in 1793, lasting, under the name 
of Directory, until it was supplanted by Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1799. In 
the following year a new constitution was promulgated, conferring the 
executive power upon him. Four years after, Napoleon was by popular 
vote proclaimed emperor. After his fall the monarchy was continued 
with Charles X. as king. In 1830 a revolution occurred, and Louis 
Philippe, Due d'Orleans, was elected to the throne. A revolution in 1848 
caused Louis Philippe to abdicate, and a republic was proclaimed. Louis 
Napoleon was elected president, and, in the following year, was pro- 
claimed emperor by nearly a unanimous vote, with the title of Napoleon 
III. In 1870 much dissatisfaction was manifested, and he appealed to 
the people for an expression in maintenance of his policy, and although 
ih& plebiscitum was manipulated by the police, it did not result to his sat- 
isfaction. In the same year he brought on the Franco-Prussian war, in 
the very beginning of which the emperor, at the battle of Sedan, sur- 
rendered, with ninety thousand men, on the 2d day of September. And 
on the 4th, two days after, a republic was proclaimed. In February 
following, the government was organized ; the legislative department con- 
sisting of a Senate of three hundred members, and a House of Deputies 
with five hundred and eighty-four members. M. Thiers was invested 
with executive powers, with the title of president. It was finally decided 
that the chief executive should be elected by the legislature, by joint 
ballot, for a term of seven years. With modifications dictated by the 
needs of the case, the republic, under several presidents, has continued 
for nearly twenty years, and bids fair to be permanent. 

The Czar and Nihilism. 

The government of Russia is the most notable example of an absolute 
monarchy now in existence. Such a government must have many ofiScers 
in subordinate places, that exercise great oppression upon the subjects. 
Among the middle classes, again, taxes must be large and oppressive. 
Redress for improper use of power and malfeasance is impossible. The 
educated middle classes, necessarily, under such conditions, become rest- 
ive, and show their uneasiness in various ways. The policy of the Czar 
has been not to listen to complaints of this class, but to punish, with the 
greatest severity, not only the guilty, but all suspects, by condemning 
them to penal servitude, or banishment under espionage, with confisca- 
tion of property and loss of citizenship. 

This condition of affairs has given rise to a secret society, whose mem- 
bers call themselves Nihilists. The name is derived from the Latin word 



OF HISTORY. 373 

nihil : nothing. Nihilism is a doctrine which proclaims that man cannot 
certainly know anything. The aim of the Nihilists is to destroy the gov- 
ernment and every social institution, without any plan or theory of substi- 
tuting anything better. 

In carrying out this aim they have perpetrated a series of atrocious 
crimes, among the most notorious of which are the assassination of Prince 
Krapotkine and the Czar. 

On the gth day of February, 1879, they shot Prince Krapotkine, Gov- 
ernor of Kharkof. On the 2d day of April following, an attempt was made 
to shoot the Czar. It failed : but two years afterwards, on the 13th of 
March, 18S1, as the emperor was returning home from a parade, a nitro- 
glycerine bomb was thrown at him, which damaged his sleigh, but left 
him unhurt. After he had alighted, another was thrown, and exploded 
at his feet, wounding him so terribly that he died in less than two hours. 

The assassins were arrested, and were hanged in the following month. 
Still, the vigilance of the police is constantly bringing to light new con- 
claves of the society, and the endless procession of convicts moving from 
western Russia to Siberia is largely sprinkled with Nihilists or suspects. 
It is the Nihilistic spirit that is supposed to have driven the late emperor 
into the war with Turkey, in which, in the winter of 1877, great num- 
bers of both armies were slaughtered, or died of exposure in the snowy 
passes of the Balkan Mountains. After a great victory at Plevna, 1877, 
the Russian army advanced to the Vi^alls of Constantinople, where, 
under pressure from other European powers, a treaty was arranged with 
the Sultan, by which he practically surrendered his authority over the 
provinces lying between the Balkan range and the Danube. But Russia 
has made no apparent gain by this treaty, as the provinces in question 
have been erected into independent kingdoms. In Central Asia, how- 
ever, Russia has made great progress, completely subduing the Khanates 
of what was Independent Tartary. These new acquisitions, which bring 
the Russian territory conterminous with those of Persia and Afghanistan, 
have been connected with the European provinces of the empire by a 
railway, constructed with marvelous energy across the desert. 

President Garfield, 

The world had barely recovered from the shock caused by the assassina- 
tion of the Emperor of Russia when General Garfield, President of the 
United States of America, was shot, on the 2d day of July, 1881, while 
waiting in the railroad station in the city of Washington. The assassin, 
Charles J. Guiteau, was arrested, tried, and executed for the crime. After 



374 GREAT EVENTS 

some weeks Mr. Garfield was taken to Elberon, N. J., where he lingered, 
enduring great suffering, till the igth of the following September, when 
he passed away, leaving the nation in profound sorrow. 

President Garfield's early education was very limited and defective. 
He, however, by persevering industry, under the influence of a pious 
mother, fitted himself for Williams College, where he graduated in 1856. 
He studied and practiced law, was elected to the Senate of Ohio, entered 
the army during the Civil War, and became brigadier-general. He was 
afterwards promoted to major-general. He was a member of the 38th 
Congress. In 1880 he was made United States Senator. In the same 
year he was elected President of the nation. As an evidence of the high 
culture which he had attained, it is said that he was never known to mis- 
pronounce a word in any speech, in college or in congress. 

President Grant. 

The last days of General Grant are interesting, because of his services 
in the Civil War. Certain public-minded gentlemen having established a 
fund of $250,000 for his support, he was, it was supposed, in a position 
to live comfortably and honorably. But, to assist his son in business, he 
became a special partner in a banking and commission house, the manag- 
ing partner of which engaged in speculations which brought the establish- 
ment to ruin. These financial entanglements having made it necessary 
that the general should do something to produce an income, the proprie- 
tors of the Century Magazine requested him to prepare some articles on 
his campaigns, which he did. He also wrote two volumes upon the 
same subject, which had a great sale, and yielded a large revenue. 

But his latter days were further imbittered by the disease of cancer of 
the'throat. He was taken to Mount MacGregor, near Saratoga, June 16, 
1885, where he spent the last five weeks of his life. The funeral cere- 
monies took place in New York on the 8th day of August, 1885, and are 
said to have been the most imposing spectacle of the kind that has been 
witnessed in America. 

Brazil. 

The South American states had, one after another, changed their regal 
forms of government to republics, till one only remained (Brazil). Over 
this large country Dom Pedro reigned as emperor with wisdom, prudence, 
and intelligence, affording great personal liberty to his subjects. He did 
much to encourage industrial pursuits and to keep up with the progress 
of the times. A few years ago he visited the United States, and examined 



OF HISTORY. 375 

with care its various industries and manufactories. He left a very favor- 
able impression wherever he went, and it has always been supposed that 
he was very popular with his people, and firmly and safely seated on his 
throne. 

It was, therefore, most unexpected and startling news, that on the 
17th of November, i88g, at 3 o'clock P. M., the Emperor Dom Pedro was 
served with a notice that he had been deposed, and a new provisional 
government was in process of formation. 

The emperor was requested to leave the country immediately, which 
he did. 

On the 19th the new government issued a proclamation, which an- 
nounced the dethronement of the emperor, the suppression of the mon- 
archy, and the formation of a temporary government, whose first work 
would be to preserve order, secure safety to life and property, and 
guarantee respect for personal liberty. And the better to secure these 
rights of the citizen, the army, navy, and departments of civil justice 
would remain under their present organizations ; and respect for those 
holding these positions would be maintained. 

The revolution was sudden and unexpected, and so successful that the 
civilized world was electrified. The accomplishment of the result without 
disorder was considered a marvel of the age. 

So far as has been ascertained, the movement began with a mutiny in 
the army, and an attempt to overthrow the ministry, but how or why no 
one seems fully able to explain ; and how it turned to the dethronement 
of the emperor is still more obscure. No resistance was made, except from 
the Minister of Marine, who shot at the insurgent leader when ordered to 
surrender. In turn he was fired upon, and badly wounded. 

There seems to have been no preconcerted plan, and yet so complete 
was the overthrow of the old rule, the organization of a provisional gov- 
ernment, and the proclamation of a republic, that it seems to point either 
to an organized plan, or to the presence of wise, prudent, skillful 
statesmen, who have shown themselves equal to the emergency. In either 
case it is plain that the possibility of such an occurrence must have been 
thought of and talked about. 

Anti-Chinese Legislation. 

The Chinese immigration to the United States has for years produced 
an uneasiness among the laboring classes, and the project of prohibiting 
by law further immigration was early agitated among them. In 1884, 
Congress passed an act forbidding Chinamen to enter the country for 



376 GREAT EVENTS 

twenty years ; but it failed to become a law, because the president refused 
to sign it, objecting on account of the twenty years' clause. The follow- 
ing year it was modified, ten years being substituted for twenty, and the 
president signed it. 

The basis of the argument for the passage of this bill was largely the 
hostility of the working classes to the Chinamen, chiefly because their 
presence cheapened labor. It was also held that they did not immigrate 
with the intention of becoming citizens, but came to accumulate property 
and return home with it. And finally, it was objected to them that they 
are pagans, and bring with them their idolatrous and heathenish worship 
and customs. 

Boycotting. 

During the Land League troubles in Ireland in the year l88o, a Captain 
Boycott was agent for a landlord who resided in England. The tenants of 
small holdings, and farm laborers, disapproved of the methods of some of 
the landlords, and especially those who did not reside on their lands. The 
tenants and laborers in the vicinity of Captain Boycott entered into a 
compact not to aid him in harvesting his crops, and to prevent, by per- 
suasion, or force if necessary, laborers from a distance from helping him. 
Since then his name has been applied to all cases where workmen have 
forbidden their fellow-laborers to enter into the service of any person, 
firm, or corporation, which the trades' unions might wish to punish. 

A case occurred in New York city, a few years since, which illustrates 
one of the phases of this sort of conspiracy. A plumber and his wife car- 
ried on two sorts of business. The husband repaired the pipes which 
either the frost, the rats, or natural wear and tear put out of order, while 
the wife conducted a prosperous bread and cake bakery. 

In order to have her employees convenient to their work she furnished 
them with bed and board. This arrangement did not please the United 
Brotherhood of Journeymen Bakers. So they notified her not to board her 
assistants. She paid no attention to the order, and they declared her 
under " boycott," and set about learning who her customers were. These 
they visited, and endeavored by persuasion or threats to induce them to 
purchase their bread and cake elsewhere. Many, out of fear, or sympathy 
with the trades' union, did so. But the daily papers took up her case, 
and encouraged her to stand out, and a new and better class of patrons 
came from outside her district, attracted by her plucky defiance of the 
boycott, and defense of personal rights. In this way she got a vast amount 
of free advertising, and in her case the boycott turned greatly to her 
advantage. 



OF HISTORY. 377 

But this means of damaging small tradespeople became so common 
that the enormity of its invasion of private rights and interference with 
personal liberty attracted the attention of our law makers, and an act 
has been passed making it a criminal offense to order a " boycott." 

On the 1 8th of April, 1888, the Pope condemned the practice, in the 
contests between the landlords and tenants in Ireland. On June 24 
an Encyclical was issued, confirming the former decree. 



Stanley and Livingstone. 

Mr. Stanley's travels and explorations have done more to give to the 
world the correct geography of Central Africa, and clear up the mystery 
that hung over the unexplored regions of that dark land, than those of 
any other explorer. He was born at Denbigh, in Wales, in 1840. His 
name is John Rowlands. His parents were humble, and in indigent cir- 
cumstances. Very little is known of his boyhood. When quite young 
he obtained the berth of cabin-boy on board a ship, and went to New 
Orleans. There he fell in with a Mr. Stanley, a wealthy merchant, who 
became so interested in him as to adopt him, and he changed his name to 
Henry M. Stanley, the name of the gentleman who adopted him. 

Mr. Stanley dying intestate, the young man was thrown upon his own 
resources, and became a reporter for the New York Herald. He soon 
showed an unusually high capacity for the work. This was soon after 
the close of the late Civil War, in which he presents the remarkable 
figure of a combatant on both sides. He had been forced into the Con- 
federate army ; but his sympathies were with the North ; and he suc- 
ceeded in getting over into the Union lines, where he remained till the 
war closed. Being fond of adventure he then went to Crete, and joined 
the insurgents, acting meanwhile as correspondent to the Herald. In 
1869, Mr. Bennett sent him to Africa to find Livingstone ; and here we 
must introduce a short account of this new man of action. David Liv- 
ingstone was born at Blantyre, a manufacturing town near Glasgow, Scot- 
land, in 1 8 17. His father was a tea dealer. At the age of ten he was 
put to work in the factory. He was fond of books, and with his first 
earnings he purchased a Latin grammar, and gave all the time he could 
spare from his duties to study, having determined to devote his life to 
missionary work. To qualify himself for this, he not only pursued a 
course of study in theology but also studied anatomy and medicine, and 
passed with credit an examination before the Faculty of Physicians and 
Surgeons at Glasgow, and received a license to practice. Thus equipped 



378 GREAT EVENTS 

to heal both soul and body, he set out, at the age of twenty-three, under 
the care and direction of the London Missionary Society, a non-sectarian 
body, for South Africa. Landing at Cape Town, he proceeded to the 
interior, where he labored as an evangelist and physician for sixteen years. 
In the course of his professional duties and journeyings he became 
acquainted with Rev. Robert Moffat, a missionary of note, whose daugh- 
ter he married. Iiesides the influences of the Gospel, and tendencies 
to civilization, which Livingstone exerted as an explorer, he made impor- 
tant discoveries. He crossed the Dark Continent from the Zambesi 
Rivei", in a northwesterly direction, to the Congo. He also discovered, in 
the central part of South Africa, Lake Ngami. After incessant journey- 
ings, hardships, and difficulties incident to a life among savages, Living- 
stone returned to England, after an absence of sixteen years. He only 
remained long enough to publish an account of his explorations. In 1856 
he set out to make further discoveries in the mysterious regions of Central 
Africa. The government and the Royal Geographical Society united 
in furnishing aid to equip him for the work, and he was made a consul. 
He was accompanied by his brother Charles, a clergyman, who had for 
some years resided in the United States, and by Dr. Kirk, a learned bot- 
anist. He began this expedition -with every necessary equipment to 
ascend the Zambesi, to ascertain how far it was navigable, and to explore 
the country. He was engaged on it several years, during which time he 
discovered Lake Nyassa, a large body of water, the southern end of which 
is about three hundred miles north of the mouth of the Zambesi. South- 
east of this he found a smaller lake, the Shriwa. In the meantime, 
Lakes Tanganyika, Albert, and Victoria, in the equatorial regions, had 
been discovered by Burton, Speke, and Baker. But, as yet, the exact 
sources of the Nile had not been satisfactorily made out. To put an 
end to doubt and conjecture, Livingstone, in 1865, entered the interior, 
and was for more than a year without communication with his government. 
His dispatches, when they reached England, described discoveries of 
the great water system in the interior, south of Tanganyika, which is the 
source of the Congo. 

Believing the source of the Nile to be also in that region, he renewed 
his search, and having been more than a year without communication, the 
government began to fear he might be suffering for want of supplies, or 
in captivity. 

It was just at this point in Livingstone's history that Stanley was sent 
to find him. Without detailing what occurred in preparation, we now 
take up the thread of events incident to Mr. Stanley's search for Living- 
stone, He proceeded to the Island of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of 



OF HISTORY. ^ 379 

Africa, in about six degrees south latitude. Having there collected sup- 
plies and equipments, with suitable animals for his journey, he, with 
one hundred and ninety men, crossed to the mainland. Moving a little 
north of west, he journeyed about five hundred and twenty miles before 
he reached the Arab ivory and slave-trading town of Unyanyembe. He 
was now within one hundred and eighty miles of Ujiji, another Arab 
trading town, on Lake Tanganvika, due west from Unyanyembe. The 
route from the coast to the lake, about five hundred and sixty miles in 
a straight line, is a well-beaten path, mostly through a fertile region, 
where grain is raised in abundance. The country is, in time of peace, 
not dangerous for travelers. The chiefs of the tribes along the route 
levy tribute ; and they know that if they maltreat the owners of cara- 
vans, they will pursue other routes. When Stanley had been gone about 
three weeks from the coast, he heard of I^ivingstone from a return- 
ing caravan. The country near Unyanyembe is described as one of 
happy pastoral aspect, where was heard in all directions the lowing 
of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats. Stanley pushed on, and 
after a journey of two hundred and thirty-six days, checkered with 
delays, fights, deaths and desertions of men, and escape and death 
of animals, he reached Ujiji, where he found Livingstone. The meeting 
is described by Stanley as follows: "I pushed back the crowds, and, 
passing from the rear, walked down a living avenue of people, until I 
came in front of the semicircle of Arabs, in front of which stood the 
white man with gray beard. As I advanced slowly toward him I 
noticed he was pale, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap with a faded 
gold band round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and gray tweed trow- 
sers. I would have run toward him, only I was a coward in presence 
of such a mob ; would have embraced him, only he, being an English- 
man, I did not know how he would receive it : so I did what cowardice 
and false pride suggested was the best thing — walked deliberately to him, 
took off my hat, and said, ' Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' 'Yes,' said he 
with a kind smile, lifting his cap ; and we grasped hands. I then said, ' I 
thank God, doctor, I have been permitted to see you.' He replied, ' I feel 
thankful that I am here to welcome you.' " 

It seems necessary here to record the work Livingstone accomplished. 
He discovered the locality of the sources of the Nile. It is a broad up- 
land from ten to twelve degrees south of the equator, about seven hundred 
miles wide from east to west, and four thousand to five thousand feet 
above the sea, the whole region dipping towards the North. Mountains 
stand upon it, rising six thousand to seven thousand feet. He says, " The 
springs that rise upon it are innumerable, or would take a large part of a 



380 GREAT EVENTS 

man's life to count them. A bird's-eye view of some parts of it may be 
compared to the frosting on a window-pane." 

These rivulets begin in an ooze at the head of a slightly depressed 
valley. A few hundred yards further on the ooze becomes a brisk peren- 
nial brook, several feet broad and deep enough to need a bridge. These 
are the sources of the rivers that flow to the north into the Nile Valley. 
They are collected into four great lines of drainage, and are the mains of 
the great river of Egypt. 

So numerous are these streams, that, in passing a distance of sixty 
miles, Livingstone says he waded thirty-two that were from calf to waist 
deep, thus averaging a stream to every two miles. 

The importance and value of the geographical knowledge obtained by 
this wonderful man can only be comprehended by those who will com- 
pare the map of Africa as it was in 1840, and the same map after his 
discoveries were placed upon it. 

Having accomplished the object of the undertaking, Mr. Stanley re- 
turned. Mr. Bennett, however, induced him to go back to Africa and 
make further explorations ; he went, and spent more than four years in 
journeyings through the land of mystery. On this visit he commenced 
his Congo exploration, in which he spent nearly five years, during which 
time he was instrumental in establishing an independent free state extend- 
ing east from the mouth of the Congo nearly half-way across the con- 
tinent. 

Returning to America, Mr. Stanley determined to rest, and write out 
an account of his strange experiences. He, however, was startled from 
this dream by a request from England and Belgium to go to the rescue of 
Emin Pasha, who had written that he was waiting for the attack of the 
Arab Mahdi, which was only a matter of time ; and that the attack meant 
annihilation. Considering it a duty, in the interests of civilization he 
consented to go again to Africa. When Emin was reached, Mr. Stanley 
found him in great doubt as to what he ought to do. He had become 
intensely interested in his labors ; but finally decided to leave the post, 
and Stanley succeeded in escorting him safely to the coast. 

Mr. Stanley, besides accomplishing the rescue of Emin, made most 
important geographical discoveries. He fixed the course of the Aruwimi 
River, and established the limits of the forest region, the size of Albert 
Lake, and discovered an extension of Lake Victoria. He also determined 
that the ultimate southern source of the "White Nile is a newly discovered 
lake, Albert Edward. 

Before closing this brief sketch of Mr. Stanley, we wish to say that, in the 
midst of the scenes and adventures an account of which has so interested 



OF HISTORY. 381 

the civilized world, the most prominent feature is the man himself. He 
always accords full credit to his comrades ; he never fails to mention 
their bravery, their faithfulness, and the manly way in which they have 
faced dangers, and the fortitude with which they have endured hardships. 
Though his plans were frequently disarranged by the failure of others, 
yet such was his capacity that he was ready with an expedient for every 
emergency. Always determined and sure of himself, he seems, like 
Livingstone and Gordon, to have been controlled and sustained by an 
ever-present, reverent, trustful faith in God. And he does not seek to 
hide it, nor fail to express it. 

As a result of the labors of these men we may confidently look for the 
establishment of civilized states in Central and Southern Africa, at no 
distant day, and the consequent complete extermination of the slave trade. 

Charles George Gordon. 

Of the early childhood of Charles George Gordon we know little. He 
was of an ancient Scottish clan, known in history as fierce fighters, sup- 
porting the Stuarts in the English civil wars. William Henry Gordon, 
the father of our hero, was bom in 1786, and took high grade as a soldier 
in the wars with the French, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-General. 
His son, Charles George, was born January 28, 1833, at Woolwich, in 
England. 

He entered the Royal Military Academy in his native place as a cadet 
at the age of sixteen. While there, he was remarkable for a great flow of 
animal spirits, and a hatred for every species of injustice or tyranny. 

Four years at Woolwich and one at Chatham brought the cadet to 
twenty-one years of age. Most of the first year after leaving the academy 
young Gordon was in garrison at Pembroke Dock, as First Lieutenant of 
Engineers. 

At this time the Crimean War was in progress. News had arrived in 
England that the troops around Sebastopol were suffering and dying from 
exposure, and want of suitable clothing and necessaries to protect them 
from the severities of the rigorous climate. 

In December, 1854, our lieutenant was ordered to the Crimea with 
wooden huts, to take the place of tents. There Gordon received his 
baptism of fire. He remained until the siege was over, superintending 
engineering operations. The war over, Gordon visited the peoples of the 
southern borders of Russia, and picked up much very valuable knowledge 
of the habits and customs of the tribes along the shores of the Black Sea. 
After an absence from home of about three years, we find him, in Novem- 



382 GREAT EVENTS 

ber, 1857, in England. In the spring of 1858 he again set out to visit the 
Crimea and vicinity, v^here, in company with a Turkish and a Russian 
engineer, he was employed in tracing and establishing boundary lines, 
agreed upon by treaty in the peace stipulations recently made. 

We next follow Gordon to China. In order to comprehend his appear- 
ance there, we must take a glance at the long series of wars which arose 
in 1839-40. In those years difficulties occurred between China and Eng- 
land with reference to the opium trade. England had introduced the drug 
from her possessions in India, whei-e it was produced, and it had become 
a profitable article of traffic. The Government of China foreseeing the 
demoralizing effects of its use upon the people, passed laws to exclude it 
from their commerce. In this the Chinese were sincere ; they might have 
collected a heavy import tax, and obtained a large revenue therefrom. 
They thought it a dangerous drug and the use of it immoral, and not only 
refused to license its sale, but they forbade its cultivation. 

The history of the nations of the earth presents no other case in which 
so high a tribute to the integrity of official motives has been paid as was 
awarded by the British agent, who wrote to his government at home that 
it is a principle of the Chinese not to license what they condemn as im- 
moral. . . . And they look with contempt upon those governments that 
tolerate vices and convert them into sources of public revenue. 

The production and sale of opium was a government monopoly in 
India from which a great revenue was obtained. China had become its 
best customer, and England was determined to compel the Chinese to 
admit the drug. In the diplomatic correspondence upon this subject, the 
Chinese minister is said to have exclaimed, " Reason has no place in the 
judgments of these people. It is not rule, but misrule, that guides them." 

In the position the Chinese took, wisdom, morality, and justice were all 
prominent. The British, on the other hand, influenced by the cupidity of 
their merchants, pursued a course characterized by selfishness, and not 
only a want of respect for the rights of others, but of gross injustice. 
Justice, however, has little weight where human interest is the moving 
lever; for 

" When self the wavering' balance shakes 
'Tis rarely right adjusted." 

England determined to enforce the trade at the cannon's mouth. The 
war was short, and England had her way. Yet, all along down to i860, 
a rasping intercourse between the nations had for twenty years kept up a 
want of cordiality. Difficulties arose which demanded that the British 
should vindicate their rights in the waters of China. The French and 
English together stormed and took the forts at the mouth of the Tien- 



OF HISTORY. 383 

tsin River, and their allied forces soon entered Pekin. About eight miles 
northwest from the city was the celebrated Summer Palace of the em- 
peror, Yuen-Ming-Yuen, in the midst of large grounds, thousands of 
acres in extent. These grounds were adorned with fruit and ornamental 
trees and shrubbery of every description that the vast territory and broad 
latitude of the empire could furnish. 

The ingenuity of the artists of the whole empire for long, centuries 
had been exhausted upon these grounds. Lakes, rivulets, waterfalls, 
Tocks, grassy vales, and wooded hills formed sites for marble, porcelain, 
and wooden structures with the most exquisite architectural embellish- 
ments, in the center of which rose the home of the emperor. Its gran- 
deur and beauty were beyond description. 

This place presented such surpassing magnificence that it was said of 
it that, "If Paradise were lost, Yuen-Ming-Yuen remained." Neverthe- 
less, it was pillaged and burned by the European troops. 

At this seat of war we find young Gordon, in the capacity of Lieutenant 
of Engineers. The Chinese had taken in battle some French and English 
prisoners. These were either executed by authority or murdered without 
command. For this, the English ordered the destruction of the Summer 
Palace and surroundings. As an engineer, Gordon was obliged to super- 
intend this piece of vandalism. He writes : "You can scarcely imagine 
the beauty and magnificence of the palaces we burned. It made one's 
heart sore to destroy them. It was wretchedly demoralizing work." It 
is difficult to believe it possible that, in this century, one of the most 
highly civilized Christian nations could perpetrate an act of such sav- 
agery. Burning of undefended property is a most cowardly act, and one 
which is remembered long, and is never forgiven. 

For a year and a half Gordon remained in camp, in the neighborhood 
of Pekin. At this time a rebellion was in progress in China, called the 
Taiping Rebellion. It began in the interior provinces of Central China. 
Its object seemed, at this time, to be plunder, outrage, and destruction of 
property. 

After signal defeats of the imperial troops, the officer in command of 
the English garrison at Shanghai recommended the Chinese Government 
to put their army under the command of Major Gordon. This was 
accordingly done. Gordon examined the canals, the streams, and the 
weak points in the defenses of the rebels, and timed his tactics to the 
habits of the enemy. His indomitable resolution, inexhaustible resources, 
and sleepless activity secured the full confidence of the Chinese. With 
unvarying success he routed the rebels, dislodging them from their strong- 
holds ; and in a little more than a year he destroyed the power of the 



384 GREAT EVENTS 

insurgents. News of his great skill and success reaching home, he 
became known as " Chinese " Gordon. He was highly honored by the 
Chinese Government at the close of his operations. 

At this time the slave trade in Central Africa was carried on princi- 
pally through the Soudan. The Khedive of Egypt wishing to suppress it, 
or at least lessen its extent, and to subject the provinces of Central Africa 
to his government, 'persuaded Gordon to undertake the task of bringing 
these provinces under control. He made him commander of the whole 
region, with the title of Governor-General of the Soudan. 

In 1879 General Gordon undertook the conquest of this vast region, 
hoping to be instrumental in the establishment of an enlightened civiliza- 
tion. He took possession of the country, and ejected many of the Arab 
slave merchants, capturing their caravans and setting their captives free. 

Four years later, in July, 1883, Ismail Pasha was deposed, on the news 
of which Gordon hastened to Cairo to offer his resignation to the new 
Khedive. The new ruler of Egypt prevailed upon Gordon to withdraw 
his resignation, as an invasion was threatened from Abyssinia, and no one 
was so able as he to conduct negotiations to prevent it ; so he set out 
again, to journey over the sands under a tropical sun. He reached the 
high table-lands of Abyssinia, where he met Johannes, the Abyssinian 
monarch, who was called the king of kings. This powerful chief, knowing 
his own strength and the feebleness of Egypt, demanded that the provinces 
which had been taken from Abyssinia should be ceded back ; and as 
Gordon could not comply with his demands the negotiations came to 
naught, and the weary, discouraged governor-general returned once more 
to Cairo. He then insisted upon resigning, and left, as he supposed, 
Egypt forever. But it was not to be so. Just after the middle of 
January, 1884, Gordon, while in Brussels, received a dispatch ordering 
him to England. He started at once, and reached London at 6 a.m., 
January 18 ; where he received orders to repair without delay to Egypt, 
and bring away from the Soudan the Egyptian garrisons and the civilians 
connected with them. 

This seemed an easy thing to do, and would have been accomplished 
had Gordon's arrangements been carried out. These were that the whole 
expedition was to be conducted upon a peace basis ; and that he was to 
be immediately followed by a military force, by which the route in his 
rear was to be kept open. This last arrangement was attempted after it 
was too late ; and the miscarriage of the whole enterprise was due to the 
failure to start the troops in time. 

Gordon, in pursuance of the work in hand, was finally compelled to 
take refuge in Khartoum, which was defended with skill and bravery 



OF HISTORY. 385 

against the Arab slave-traders, who had mustered a large force to attack 
the town. Hunger, consequent feebleness, and discouragement so far 
demoralized the garrison that without him it could offer but slight 
resistance. 

On the 26th of January, 1885, 'the Arabs assaulted and carried the lines. 
Treachery may have lent its aid to accomplish the result. The truth will 
never be known ; it is buried with the dead. Gordon was awakened from 
a short and troubled sleep at early dawn by the shouts and yells of the 
victorious Arabs. He, in company with a small party of soldiers, left 
the palace and was moving toward the church of the Austrian mission, 
which was a reserve magazine, and had been prepared for an emergency 
of this kind, when they were met by a detachment of Arabs, who fired 
upon them, and Gordon fell. 

Thus died one of the " men of action " of this century. It has been 
said of him that he was as unselfish as Sidney, with the dauntless courage 
of Wolfe, the stainless honor of Outram, the sympathy of Drummond, 
the honesty of Napier, and the faith of More. The great statesman of 
England defined Gordon as " a man in close communion with God." He 
was absolutely devoid of bigotry, and had no use for creeds. His faith 
was deep, his letters were usually prefaced with "Deo volente." He ex- 
ercised the broadest form of Christianity. Though a communicant in 
the Church of England, he was known to commune in the Greek Church, 
and to beg a Roman Catholic bishop to pray for him. 

Once, while in great sorrow and indignation on account of what he con- 
sidered improper conduct of government officials, while at Khartoum, he 
writes : " May our Lord not visit us, as a nation, for our sins ; but may 
his wrath fall on me, hid in Christ. This is my frequent prayer ; and 
may he spare these people, and bring them to peace ! " This sketch, 
necessarily brief, by no means does justice to the unusual qualities of 
this great man. 

. Emin. 

Emin, of whom so much has recently been written, is a native of Sile- 
sia, a province of Eastern Germany, bounded by Poland on the east. 
His name is Edward Schnitzer. He was educated for a physician, at 
the Universities of Breslau and Berlin. He was fond of travel, and pos- 
sessed a genuine spirit of adventure. Fond also of natural history pur- 
suits, he was especially devoted to botany. He visited Turkey, Armenia, 
and Syria ; and, in Arabia became a follower of Ismail Pasha, and was 
known as Dr. Emin. He had, in his wanderings, made the acquaint- 
ance of General Gordon, who in 1876 appointed him governor of a prov- 



386 GREAT EVENTS 

ince in the Soudan whose capital is at Lado, on the upper reach of the 
White Nile. His administration has been a wonderful success, both 
morally and financially. He has held the government of the province in 
hand for fifteen years, maintaining an army of two thousand native 
Egyptian troops. With these he has driven out the slave traders, set up 
schools, planted mission stations, and established an enlightened, powerful 
and good government over a population of six million of souls, who were 
in the grossest ignorance and in the most barbarous practices of savagery. 
Since the death of Gordon, Emin had been barely able to resist the power 
of the Arab slave traders, and in the latter part of 1889 was rescued by 
Stanley. 

Ship Canals. 

Prominent among the achievements of modern times is the connecting 
of the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean by means of a ship 
canal crossing the Isthmus of Suez to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The 
canal-route was surveyed and the construction directed by Professor de 
Lesseps, the celebrated French engineer. The work was prosecuted with 
vigor, and the canal was opened to navigation on the i6th of November, 
1869, making a highway to all Southern Asia, from Western and South- 
ern Europe, very much shorter and more safe than the old route around 
the Cape of Good Hope. 

The success of this feat has led to an attempt to pierce the Isthmus 
of Panama, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A project of this 
kind was entertained and became a political question, which caused party 
divisions in Spain, as early as 1519. It was again agitated in 1558, and 
the excitement became of such a nature that the king (Philip 11.) inter- 
fered and ordered the matter to be given up. He even threatened the 
agitators with death. 

The city or town of Panama is situated at the terminus of the Panama 
Railroad, on the Pacific side of the isthmus. It was founded in 1518 by 
Pedrarias Davila, and is said to be the oldest city in America founded by 
Europeans. The population of the city in 1880 was twenty-five thou- 
sand, about five thousand of whom were strangers or transient guests. A 
large number of the permanent residents are of African descent. The 
railroad across the isthmus extends from Aspinwall, on the Atlantic coast, 
to Panama, on the Pacific, and is fifty miles in length. 

Theword Panama is of Indian origin, and signifies abundance of fish, 
for which the vicinity is noted. 

In 1814 the Spanish authorities agitated again the subject of a canal 
across the isthmus. In 1821 a survey was made, and, though for twenty 



OF HISTORY. 387 

years the canal was the subject of much conjecture, and various plans for 
constructing it were discussed, nothing was accomplished. 

For the succeeding forty years, though the project was not lost sight of, 
nothing was undertaken until 1879, when Count de Lesseps, who had 
successfully engineered the Suez Canal, appealed to the nations of 
Europe to send delegates to Paris to a proposed congress, in order to 
decide upon a plan and a route for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, 
to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. 

This congress met at Paris, May 15, 1879. It was composed of one 
hundred and thirty-five members, seventy-four of whom were French, 
six from Great Britain, eleven from the United States, six from Hol- 
land, four from Switzerland, and one from Germany. Other countries of 
Europe, the Sandwich Islands, Costa Rica, Guatemala, San Salvador, Mar- 
tinique, and other states were represented. 

This congress, after deliberation, resolved that the construction of 
a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific was possible. The passage- 
from Limon Bay to Panama was, for certain reasons, the best route. First, 
the distance is shortest, being forty-six miles. Second, it is the only 
practical sea-level route. Third, it has safe, deep harbors at each end. 
Fourth, it is near the line of the railroad. 

Upon the rising of this congress a company was formed, called the 
" Universal Inter-Oceanic Canal Company." 

Count de Lesseps, having visited the route, estimated the amount of 
earth to be removed, and, allowing for all contingencies, decided that 
$120,000,000 would cover the cost. 

Operations commenced in October, 1881, by sending out machinery 
and three hundred men to begin the excavation. Without following in 
detail the successive steps of this gigantic undertaking, we may say that 
the work crept along slowly until December, 1889. A person on the 
ground at that date, says : "At present operations on the canal are at a 
standstill, and a few overflows from the Chagres River would undo much 
that has been accomplished at such enormous expense of life and treas- 
ure." 

The persons who became stockholders and bondholders were, as has 
been said, assured that the canal would be inaugurated and earning a 
dividend in nine years. But the nine years have parsed, $650,000,000 
instead of $120,000,000 have been expended, and the undertaking is less 
than one third accomplished ; and unless the present company can sell, 
and realize something for the plant, the concession of the Colombian 
Government, the machinery and work already done, the whole of this vast 
sum, with its accrued interest, must be a total loss. 



388 GREAT EVENTS 

Electricity. 

Marvelous strides during recent years have been made in the applica- 
tion of natural forces to utilitarian purposes, and the control which man 
has obtained of electricity, and the uses to which he has applied it, are 
among the most interesting and remarkable. 

Dr. Franklin's discoveries in collecting and storing up electricity in 
glass jars was much talked of among the educated classes of London. 
While on a visit to England, the Doctor was invited to attend a reception, 
where he appeared in Quaker costume. A lady, pointing to him, asked 
who that plain man was. " Hush," said her husband, " that is the man 
who bottles up thunder and lightning." 

The highest attribute the ancient Greeks claimed for their great god, 
Jupiter, was the power to direct the lightnings of heaven. 

In our day maji stretches forth his hand, plucks the lightnings from the 
clouds, and sends them thousands of miles along the cable buried beneath 
the mud of the ocean, to convey his messages. He collects the electric 
force by machinery, stores it up, and by its aid converses and transacts 
business with his friend in a town a hundred miles away ; lights his cities 
and villages ; moves machinery and propels his carriages. 

The ancients knew very little about electricity. Thales, who lived in 
the middle of the seventh century B.C., mentions in his writings that 
amber, when rubbed, attracted light bodies. 

The history of electricity dawned in the latter part of the sixteenth 
century. William Gilbert, an English physician, in his researches into 
magnetism, discovered that several substances possessed the same property 
of developing electricity as amber. He was the author of the name, 
which he derived from the Greek word eXEHrpov, amber. He called 
his book De Arte Magnetica. About seventy years after the appearance 
of Gilbert's book, a burgomaster of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke, pub- 
lished a book under the title Nezo Magdeburg Experiments, in which he 
describes the first machine ever made to collect electricity. It was of 
his contrivance, and consisted of a globe of sulphur, revolved by a crank, 
and rubbed by a woolen cloth held in the hand. About thirty years sub- 
sequently, Hawksbee substituted glass in Von Guericke's machine instead 
of sulphur, rubbed with silk instead of wool. 

Du Fay, in the early part of the last century, advanced the doctrine of 
two fluids which are present on the surface of all bodies. Dr. Franklin, 
about the same time, showed the conditions of the Leyden Jar, a piece of 
apparatus for storing electricity, invented by Muschenbroek of Leyden, 
and also proved the identity of electricity with lightning, by sending a 



OF HISTORY. 389 

silken kite into a thunder-cloud and bringing down the electricity by the 
cord. Franklin combated Du Fay's theory of two fluids. Franklin's 
theory maybe briefly stated as follows : 

Electricity is a fine elastic fluid diffused through all nature. Though 
self- repellent, like compressed air, when in a natural state, it is evenly 
spread over all bodies, and none of the human senses are affected. If, 
however, the equilibrium is destroyed by collecting the fluid, and placing 
more upon a body than its natural share, and if that body be placed in 
contact with one in a natural state, an instantaneous discharge will 
occur, and both bodies will be again in equilibrium. This phenomenon is 
called a " shock." 

We have thus far considered the method of procuring electricity by 
friction. If a strip of copper and one of zinc be placed into weak sul- 
phuric acid, their upper ends connected, a current of electricity will pass 
from the zinc to the copper, in which case the electricity seems to be 
liberated or set in motion by the chemical action of the acid upon the zinc. 
Such a current, passed over an insulated copper wire, wound round a piece 
of common iron, makes the iron a magnet. By breaking and renew- 
ing the current the magnetic condition is alternately produced and 
destroyed ; and thus motion is obtained. A continued current is also 
produced by moving armatures at right angles to the poles of a horse-shoe 
magnet. 

Voltaic and magneto-electric currents have, during the last few years, 
been so successfully applied to the arts and industrial purposes, as to earn 
a place for these applications in the record of the great events in man's 
history. The most important of these applications is the telegraph. 
Aided by an electrical current, the touch of a girl's finger in the city of 
New York sets a machine in motion and carries on a conversation in the 
city of London, nearly three thousand miles away. 

The proprietor of a great hotel in the city of New York goes to his 
telephone, and in turn rings up his butcher, grocer, wine merchant, etc., 
and in ten minutes orders the day's supplies for his thousand guests, car- 
riages for those departing, and expressmen for their baggage. We visit a 
neighboring city and behold cars passing along the street without either 
horses or steam. We wonder what it is that makes them go, and are told 
that it is electricity. When night comes on, electric lights, rivaling the 
brightness of the moon, illuminate our streets ; the most delicate engrav- 
ings that illustrate our books and magazines are multiplied by the galvanic 
bath ; and, in a multitude of small factories and workshops, the magnetic 
engine has taken the place of the cumbrous and dangerous steam-engine. 
Electricity is now " laid on," like gas, in a multitude of homes and places 



390 GREAT EVENTS 

of business, and is made to do an infinity of work, from giving an auto- 
matic alarm of tiie presence of fire or of burglars, to running our sewing- 
machines and regulating our clocks. The greater number of these inven- 
tions are of very recent origin, and many of them are due to a single 
genius, worthy of being mentioned as one of the great men of this 
period, Thomas Alva Edison. 

East River and Other Bridges. 

The most striking mark of progress and enterprising activity in the 
Union is the great bridge that spans the East River, connecting the cities 
of New York and Brooklyn. This gigantic structure cost $15,000,000. 
Its roadway is eighty-five feet wide, and a mile and an eighth long, and is 
one hundred and thirty-five feet above high water. It is called the East 
River Bridge, but is better known as the Brooklyn Bridge. 

It grew out of the wants of the two great cities which it unites. Brook- 
lyn, in which more than half a million of people reside, has become the 
sleeping-place for a large number of the bankers, brokers, and merchants 
of the great metropolis. A better and surer means of access than was 
afforded by the ferries became a necessity, and the problem of a bridge, 
which should not obstruct the water thoroughfare, nor be embarrassed with 
a draw, for years engaged the attention of capitalists, and the best minds 
among our practical engineers. In i860, Mr. John A. Roebling, who 
had thrown a bridge over the gorge of the Niagara River, a mile below 
the falls, presented to the cities of New York and Brooklyn the plan of 
the Brooklyn Bridge. Ten years afterward, on the 2d day of January, 
1870, work was commenced upon the gigantic structure. On the 29th 
day of May, 1S77, the first wire was stretched across the river. 

The engineer was Colonel Washington A. Roebling, son of the distin- 
guished gentleman who made the plans. He had Mr. C. C. Martin as 
chief assistant, and other eminent engineers as aids. 

This highway, across one of the most crowded waterways in the world, 
must be included among the marvelous achievements of modern times. 

It was thrown open to the use of the public on the 24th of May, 1883, 
just 13 years, 4 months, and 22 days after the work was commenced. Its 
incomparable usefulness can only be fully appreciated on a foggy morning, 
when the river is crowded with drifting ice, and when, in consequence, 
passengers on the ferry-boats are sometimes delayed for hours. 

The Romans were among the earliest bridge builders ; they had seven 
in the city of Rome, across the Tiber. The great value they set upon 
them may be inferred from the fact that they were placed under the care 



OF HISTORY. 391 

of tite priests. Hence the name Pontifices or Bridge Makers, applied to 
the priests, and pontiff, from pontifex, the chief of bridge makers. 

The great bridge of antiquity was built by Trajan, over the Danube, 
in Hungary. It was erected upon twenty stone arches, each of which 
spanned one hundred and seventy feet. The keystone of each arch was 
seventy-five feet higher than the top of the piers on which the arch rested, 
and the tops of the piers were forty-five feet above the surface of the water, 
and sixty feet wide. The roadway was nearly a mile in length, and one 
hundred and fifty feet above the foundation. This gigantic structure was 
destroyed by Hadrian. Its ruins still exist. 

In London, the beauty and strength of the bridges over the Thames 
entitle them to a claim to historic prominence ; in architectural symmetry 
and elegance they far exceed anything of the kind produced by the 
Romans. The oldest of the London bridges was erected in the year 
1000. Coming down to recent times, a most wonderful bridge was thrown 
across the Strait of Menai in 1832, to connect the Island of Anglesea with 
Wales. The points of suspension are five hundred and eighty feet apart, 
and the roadway is one hundred feet above the water. 

The suspension chains are formed of iron bars connected by shackle 
bolts, resting on the pyramidal towers upon rollers. The chains are 
covered with flannel, saturated with rosin and beeswax, and wound with 
iron wire. The weight of the bridge is four hundred and eighty-nine tons. 

It is capable of sustaining a load of two thousand and sixteen tons, and 
cost $350,000 (engineer, M. Telford). 

In 1813, a remarkable bridge was constructed in Philadelphia, to cross 
the Schuylkill. The arch is a single span, the chord of which is three 
hundred and forty feet, and rises only thirty feet. The radius of the 
circle of which it is an arc is seven hundred and thirty feet. No other 
bridge arch in the world has so great a span. This bridge cost $150,000. 
The engineer was Mr. Wennwag. 

Eiffel Tower. 

Monumental structures to commemorate the deeds or virtues of the dis- 
tinguished dead, or as resting-places for their remains, were among the 
earliest achievements of architectural effort. The Greeks erected magnifi- 
cent temples to honor their gods. The Romans built gigantic triumphal 
arches to celebrate the deeds of their victorious generals. The Egyptians 
constructed the everlasting Pyramids to protect the embalmed bodies of 
their kings. These structures have continued until the present time, to 
indicate the advancement and civilization of their periods. 



392 GREAT EVENTS 

The most gigantic pile of this character recorded was the Tower of 
Babel.* The highest and most remarkable structure of the kind erected 
in modern times is the Washington Monument, which rises five hundred 
and fifty-five feet above its base in the public grounds of Washington, and 
was designed to commemorate the deeds and virtues of George Washing- 
ton, the first President of the United States of North America. 

It is a square column or shaft, whose side is fifty-five feet at the base, 
built around a hollow square chamber, the side of which is twenty-five feet. 
The walls at the base are fifteen feet thick, and taper on the outside to 
two feet at top. The walls of the chamber are inlaid with blocks of 
stone from different States of the Union, as well as from other countries 
all over the world. These blocks are covered with inscriptions in praise 
of the Father of the Country. This great fabrication was projected in the 
early part of the present century ; but the corner-stone was not laid until 
July 4, 1849, and the cap-stone, completing the pyramidal top, was laid 
December 6, 1884. The ceremonies of dedication took place February 22, 
1885. The cost of this towering monument was $1,130,000. When com- 
pleted, it was the highest building in the world. Within the last two 
years, however, a structure has been erected in the city of Paris which 
exceeds the Washington Monument in height by more than four hundred 
feet. This wonderful building is called The Eiffel Tower, from the 
name of the celebrated man who planned and engineered the construction. 
His design was to prepare an observatory from which a bird's-eye view of 
the Great Exposition and of the city and suburbs could be grouped in one 
grand picture. The structure rests upon four heavy masses of masonry, 
two of which, next to the River Seine, are sunk to a depth of forty feet. 
The excavations for the other two reached a solid foundation at the depth 
of about twenty-three feet. Upon these massive walls, or foundations, 
the four feet, or corners, of the great building, which is constructed 
entirely of iron, rest. These feet are the ends of four great posts. Start- 
ing at a large angle, inclining toward a common center, they gradually 
change this angle until their direction becomes nearly vertical. They 
are bolted and tied and braced in such a manner as to give the tower the 
greatest possible strength. The whole structure weighs four million nine 
hundred thousand pounds, or four thousand nine hundred tons. 

I will close this short sketch in the words of M. Camille Flammarion, 
who pronounces it a bold conception, and an execution truly marvelous, and 
goes on to say : " On the evening of the opening of the Exposition, it was 
surrounded to the very top with the red fires of Bengal lights, and illu- 

* See page 17. 



OF HISTORY. 393 

minated with borders of gas jets, all along from base to summit, where 
blazed a resplendent, dazzling beacon, visible for nearly forty miles 
around, lighting up the Exposition grounds, and the city, with a glare 
rivaling the sun at noonday. 

" This pillar of many-colored fire lighted up the Seine, which was 
crowded with boats of all forms and sizes, dressed with colors and flags, 
carrying choirs and orchestras. This, with the multitudes upon the 
grounds, presented a spectacle which, to be appreciated, must be seen." 

And he closes by saying that the Eiffel Tower is " worthy of this Ex- 
position, worthy of modern science, and the progress of the century which 
it crowns." 

GREAT NAMES OF THE TENT El PERIOD. 

Robert E. Lee, born January 19, 1807 — General-in-chief of the Confed- 
erate armies in the War of Secession — surrendered to General Grant 
at Appomattox — died 1870. 

Horace Greeley, born February 3, 1811 — celebrated American journal- 
ist — founded the New York Tribune, 1841 — his celebrated saying 
was : " Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident "—died 1872. 

A. T. Stewart, born in Ireland, October 27, 1802 — engaged in teaching 
when he came to America — embarked in the dry-goods business, and 
built up the largest mercantile establishment in the world — bought 
the Great Plains in Queens County, Long Island, and founded Gar- 
den City — died 1876. 

Alexander H. Stevens, born 1812 — died March 4, 1883 — American 
statesman, opposed secession with great eloquence ; but finally 
yielded and became Vice-President of the Confederacy — educated 
thirty-six young men at his own expense. 

Asa Gray, born November 18, 1810, New York — celebrated American 
botanist with a world-renowned fame — voluminous writer — Fisher 
professor of natural history at Harvard University — died 1888. 

Martin Luther's four hundredth birthday was celebrated on the loth 
of November, 1887, throughout Protestant countries, in both Europe 
and America. Was bom November 10, 1483. 

Jefferson Davis, born in Kentucky, June 3, 1808 — fought in Indian 
wars and in Mexico — was United States senator, and at the outbreak 
of the Civil War in 1861 was United States Secretary of War — he was 
a leader in secession and became the President of the Confederacy 
— was captured May 10, 1865, tried for treason, released on bail, 
and finally pardoned by President Johnson. 



394 GREAT EVENTS 

William B. Astor, son of John Jacob Astor — celebrated American capi- 
talist — born in New York, 1792 — died 1875 — on February 22, 1890, 
his son, William B., noted for his enterprise and benevolence, died. 

Arnold H. Guyot, a distinguished geologist and physicist, and friend of 
Agassiz — died Feb. 3, 1888, in the 77th year of his age — professor 
of geology and physical geography in the College of New Jersey. 

Theodore Dwight Woolsey, D.D., LL.D., ex-president of Yale 
University — died July i, iBSg, in the 88th year of his age. 

IMPORTANT EVENTS. 

Death by Electricity — the Legislature of New York, during the ses- 
sion of 1887 and 1888, passed an act making it lawful to execute crim- 
inals by electricity who shall be condemned to suffer the death pen- 
alty — the bill was signed by Governor Hill and became a law on 
the 4lh of June, 1888. 

Pan-Presbyterian Congress — in 1884 the Presbyterian Church con- 
vened at Belfast, Ireland, to which all the different churches in the 
world that are organized under a Presbyterian form of government 
were invited to send delegates — meeting was opened on the 24th of 
June, and remained in session nine days. 

The New Time Standard for the United States went into effect at 
noon on the i8th of November, 1884. 

New States — North and South Dakota were admitted as new States to 
the Union, November 2, 1889 — Montana on the 8th, and Washington 
on the nth, of the same month. Idaho became a State by President 
Harrison's signature, July 3, 1890. Wyoming was admitted into the 
Union as a State. President Harrison signed the bill on the tenth 
day of July, 1890. 

The Pan-American Congress met in Washington, October 2, i88g, 
Hon. James G. Blaine, chairman — this was a meeting of delegates 
from all the governments of both North and South America for the 
purpose of devising means to facilitate commercial intercourse. 

Inundation in the valley of the Hoang Ho (Yellow River) in China — 
a most destructive flood occurred, commencing in February, 1888 — 
this river rises in the high lands of the rnountainous region of East- 
ern Thibet, and flows 2,800 miles through a tortuous channel, 
emptying into the Gulf of Pe-chi-li — it drains one of the most popu- 
lous and fertile valleys of the empire — in some places the coun- 
try is protected from overflow by embankments — in February, 1888, 
while laborers were engaged in repairing the dykes, 4,000 lives were 



OF HISTORY. 395 

lost — in the following March the country along the lower reaches of 
the river was suddenly submerged and 100,000 persons lost their 
lives, and 1,800,000 were rendered homeless and destitute. 

Inundation — in May, 1889, the most terrible and destructive disaster 
that has ever occurred by flood in America took place at Johnstown, 
Pa., a manufacturing town in the Conemaugh Valley — a dam, 
just above the town, broke, and the entire place was swept away, 
causing the loss of 6,000 lives, and the entire destruction of all the 
property of the place. 

Quebec, Canada — a landslide took place, September 19, 1889, when a 
portion of the heights fell into the lower town, crushing the houses 
and burying 50 persons among the ruins. 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Abram, born, 

Abraham leaves Haran, 

Acres taken by the Turks, 

Addison, Joseph, born, 
died, 

Alaric the Goth sacked 
Rome, 

Albigenses, Battle of Mu- 
ret, 

Alexander the Great, 

Alfred the Great, 

Algiers, War with, 

Alnama captured, 

Almanza, Battle of, 

Alps crossed by Napo- 
leon, 

America discovered, 

American Revolution, 

America settled, 

America, War with Eng- 
land, 

American Civil War, 

Anabaptists, 

Andr^, 

Angles, 

Arabs, Origin, 

Arbela, Battle of, 

Aristotle, 

Army, English, 

Arnold's 'treason, 

Asshurbanipal, 

Assyria rose, 

Asunpink, Battle of, 

Attila the Hun, pillaged 
Rome, 

Augustine, Father of Latin 
Theology, 461 

Augustine, sent to Eng- 
land as a Missionary, 

Augsburg League, 

Auerstadt, Battle of, 

Austerlitz, Battle of, 

Antietam, Battle of, 

B 

Babel, Tower of, 

Babylon founded by Nim- . 
rod, 

Bacon, Francis, born, 
died. 

Barbarous Nations of In- 
fant Europe, 



DATE. PAGE. | 


1996 B.C. 


19 


1921 B.C. 


19 


I29I A.D. 


IZ5 


1672 A.D. 




I719 A.D. 


308 


410 A.D. 




I2I3 A.D. 


126 


356 B.C. 


39 


871 A.D. 


161 


1815 A.D. 


224 


1482 A.D. 


156 


1707 A.D. 


287 


1800 A.D. 


221 


1492 A.D. 


192 


1775 A.D. 


205 


1620 A.D. 


199 


1812 A.D. 


221 


1862 A.D. 


344 


1524 A.D. 


336- 


1780 A.D. 


217 




163 




II 


331 B.C. 


37 


384 B.C. 


39 




194 


1780 A.D. 


217 


650 B.C. 


10 


2247 B.C. 


34 


1777 A.D. 


212 


453 A.D. 


64 


-590 A.D. 


78 


596 A.D. 


92 


1686 A.D. 


28s 


1806 A.D. 


32s 


1805 A.D. 


318 


1862 A.D. 


3SO 


2247 B.C. 


IS 


224s B.C. 


36 


1561 A.D. 




1626 A.D. 


277 




90 



DATE. PAGE. 
312 
152 
373 
169 



1389 A.D. 

III9 A.D. 

285 B.C. 
1534 A.D. 

l6ll A.D. 
1769 A.D. 

1870 A.D. 

1795 A.D. 
179s A.D. 

1776 A.D. 210 



1776 A.D. 
1489 A.D. 
1880 A.D. 



Bastile, 

Bajazet, 

Bazaine's Vindication, 

Becket, Thomas k, born, 

Bible, Old Testament, 
translated into Greek, 

Bible, printed in English, 

Bible, King James's Trans- 
lation, 

Bonaparte, Napoleon L, 

Bonaparte, Napoleon III., 
surrendered at Sedan, 

Bonaparte cleared Streets 
of Paris, 

Bonaparte's Career, 

Boston evacuated by the 
British. 

Boston entered by Wash- 
ington, 

Bosworth, Battle, 

Boycotting, 

Britons, Life amongst, 

Brunswick, House of, began 
to reign, 

Buffon, Geo., Comte de, 
born, 
died. 

Bunker Hill or Breed's 
Hill, Battle of, 

Burgoyne captured, 

Byron, Lord (George Gor- 
don), born, 
died, 

Brazil, Revolution, 

Bridges : Brooklyn and 
others, 

Bull Run, Battle, 



Ceesar invaded England, 55 b.c. 

Calais, taken by the French, 
Calvin, John, born, 1509 a.d. 

Call for Troops, 1800 a.d. 

Campo Formio Treaty, 1797 a.d. 
Canada invaded, 1775 a.d. 

Canute, King of England, ^1017 a.d. 
Canute, Anecdote, 
Carthage founded, 880 a.d. 

Cervantes, born, 1547 a.d. 

died, 1616 A.D. 

Charles I., England, be- 
headed, 1649 A.D. 



17.75 A.D. 
1777 A.D. 

1788 A.D. 
1824 A.D. 
1889 A.D. 



178 

181 
318 

366 

377 
318 



211 
17s 
376 
162 



I714 A.D. 187 



1707 A.D. 
1788 A.D. 



205 
213 



342 

374 



390 
300 



161 
178 
237 
350 
320 
210 
166 
166 
37 

270 
181 



39^ 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



DATE. PACE. 



Charles II., England, 




184 


Charles V., born. 


1500 A.D. 


239 


Charles V., Funeral, 


1558 A.D. 


224 


Charles X., 




372 


Charles XII., Sweden, 


1709 A.D. 


289 


Charlemagne crowned, 


800 A.D. 


84 


Charlemagne died. 


814 A.D. 


98 


Chaucer, 


1328 A.D. 


142 


China, War with England, 


1841 A.D. 


189 


Chinese Anti-Legislation, 


1884 A.D. 


375 


Chivalry, 




136 


Cholera appeared in Eng- 






land, 


1831 A.D. 


1S9 


Cholera appeared in Ame- 






rica, 


1832 A.D. 




Christianity declared the 






Religion of Rome, by 






Constantine, 


324 A.D. 


57 


Christian Clergymen ex- 






empted from Taxes, 


324 A.D. 


57 


Christianity introduced intc 






England, 


597 A.D. 


163 


Cities and Empires of An- 






tiquity, 




16 


Civil War in American 






U.S., 


1861 A.D. 


344 


Clovis died. 


511 A.D. 


8S 



1492 A.D. ig6 



1493 A.D. 197 



Columbus sailed from 

Pal OS, 
Columbus entertained and 

honored by Ferdinand 

and Isabella, 
Columbus falsely accused, 

sent Home in Irons, 
Confusion of Tongues, 
Constantine entered Rome 

in Triumph, 
Constantine died, 
Constantine the Great, 
Constantine Palseologus on 

the Throne, 
Constantinople or Byzan- 
tium, Seat of Empire, 
Constantinople, Siege of, 
Continental Europe, 
Contemporary Nations 

with the Hebrews, 
Continental Congress met 

at Philadelphia, 
Cordova fell, 
Cornwallis surrendered, 
Coulmiers, Battle of, 
Cortes conquered Mexico, 1519A.D 
Coup d'fetat of Napoleon 

III., 
Cowpens, Battle of, 
Creation of Man supposed 

to have taken place, 4004 e.g. 
Crecy, Battle, Edward gave 

the Garter, 1346 e.g. 

Crimean Wai?, 1S54 a.d. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 1653 a,d. 

Cromwell, Richard, 1658 a.d. 

Crucifixion, 

Crusades began, 1095 a.d. 

Crusades ended, 1212 a.d. 



1500 a.d. 

2447 B.G. 

313 a.d. 
337 A.D. 

306 A.D. 



302 A.D. 
1450 A.D. 
1815 A.D. 



1775 A.D. 
1236 A.D. 
I781 A.D. 



2 A.D. 

;i A.D. 



197 
18 

56 

59 
55 



203 

157 
220 

373 
197 

347 
219 



172 
igo 
183 
183 
42 

"5 
124 



DATE. PAGE. 

Cuvier, George, Baron, 

born, 1769 A.D. 

died, 1832 A.D. 343 

Cuneiform Inscriptions, 9 

Czar, Assassination, 18S1 a.d. 372 

D 

Danes, Invasion of, 871 a.d. 163 
Danes began to reign, 1017 a.d. 163 
Danes, Massacre of, 165 
Dante, 1267 a.d. 142 
Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, 1776 a.d. 206 
Deluge, 2348 B.C. 14 
Demosthenes, born, 381 e.g. 

died, 322 B.C. 38 

Directory, 1799 a.d. 372 

Disasters of Tenth Period, 394 
Dissolution of the Union 

proposed, 1811 a.d. 344 

Dryden, John, born Aug., 1631 a.d. 

died, 1700 A.D. 307 

Dutch, Origin of, 91 
Dutch Republic, Siege of 

Leyden, 1574 a.d. 246 

Dikes of Holland cut, 1574 a.d. 247 



Eden, 

Egbert unites States of 

the Heptarchy, 
Egypt conquered by Cam- 

byses, 
Eiffel Tower, 
Elamites. Invasion, 
Electricity, 
Elizabeth of England on 

the Throne, 
Emancipation of Slavery, 

U. S., Jan. I, 1863 A.D 

England, Early History, 
England, Early Inhabi- 

tantS; 
England invaded by Csesar, 
Enim, 

Exodus, 149I E.G. 

Expenditures of English 
Government, 



14 



827 A.D. 163 

;i83 B.C. 33 
391 



1558 A.D. 179 

1863 A.D. 351 
160 

160 
161 -2 

23 



194 



Fall of Man, 

Fall of the Western Em- 
pire, 

Ffoelon, born, 
died, 

Ferdinand and Isabella 
married. 

Feudal System introduced 
into England, 

Fire in Rome, 

Fire in London, 

Forest, New, 

Fort Sumter fired on, 

France entered into a 
Treaty, 



1450 B.C. 12 



476 A.D. 
1651 A.D. 
1715 A.D. 

1469 A.D. 

1066 A.D. 
64 A.D. 
1666 A.D. 
1079 A.D. 
i8di A.d. 



64 
308 
158 
168 

49 



1777 A.D. 214 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



399 



DATE. PAGE. 

Franco- Prussian War, 1S70 a.d. 354 
Frederick the Great, born, 1712 a.d. 

died, 1786 A.D. 29s 
French Fleet arrived in 

America, 1778 a.d. 215 

French Republic, 1871 a.d. 372 

French Revolution, 1790 a.d. 313 

French Revolution, 1830 a.d. 372 



1564 
1642 



1760 



1779 
1777 



a.d. 

A.D. 277 

A.D. 373 

A.D. 187 

A.D. 187 

A.D. 187 

A.D. 188 



A.D. 385 
A.D. 188 
A.D. 210 



1863 A.D. 350 



Galileo, born, 
died, 

Garfield Assassination, 

George I., England, began 
to reign, 

George ll., England, be- 
gan to reign, 

George III., England, be- 
gan to reign, 

George IV., England, be- 
gan to reign, 

Gordon, Charles George, 

Gordon, Charles George, 
in China, 

Gordon. Charles George, 
in Africa, 

Gordon's, Charles George, 
Death, 

George Gordon Riots, 

Germantown Battle, 

Gettysburg, Battle, Lee 
driven out of Pennsyl- 
vania, 

Gibraltar taken by the 
English, 

Goths sack Rome, 

Government, British, 

Granada, War of, 

Grand Alliance. 

Granicus, Battle of, 

Grant, U. S., died, 1883 

Grant, Ulysses S., took 

Command of the Army, 1864 

Gravelotte, Battle, 1870 

Gray, Lady Jane, 

Great Names of Tenth Pe- 
riod. 

Greece, Revolution, 1822 

Greece rose, 331 

Grecian Empire, 

Gregory's Letter to John 
condemning the Title 
of Universal Bishop, 

Growchow, Battle of, 

Gustavus Adolphus set out 
for Battle, 

Gustavus Adolphus, Battle 

of LUtzen, 1632 a.d. 26b 

Gustavus Adolphus died, 1632 a.d. 265 

H 

Handel, Geo. Frederick, 

born, 1684 a.d. 

died, 1759 A.D. 309 

Haroun al Raschid, 786 a.d. 100-2 



1704 
410 



1492 A, 
1707 



A.D. 287 
A.D. 60 
194 
.D. 159-60 
A.D. 286 

39 
A.D. 374 

A.D. 351 

A.D. 3S4 

178 

393 
A.D. 339 
B.C. 37 



1 A.D. 79 
; A.D. 341 



1630 A.D. 263 



DATE. PAGE. 



Haydn, Joseph, born, 
died, 

Hebrews, Origin, 

Hegira, 

Hellenes appear in Greece, 

Henry of Navarre, 

Henry of Navarre, 

Herodotus supposed to 
have written, 

Herschel, Wm., born, 
died, 

Hessians, Capture of Tren- 
ton, I 

Homer lived. 

Humboldt, Alexander, Ba- 
ron von, born, 
died. 

Huguenots, 

Hyksos— Shepherd Kings, 



Important Events of the 

Tenth Period, 
Impost first established in 

America, 
Income of Great Britain, 
Independence of British 

Colonies declared, 
Inquisition established. 
Invincible Armada, 
Israelites enter Canaan, 
Israelites, Progress of, 
Issus, Battle of, 
Italy in the Middle Ages, 



J 

Jack Straw, 
James I., England, 
James II., England, 
Jamestown settled, 
Jena, Battle of, 
Jerusalem, Siege of, by the 

Romans, 
Jerusalem taken by the 

Romans, 
Jews, Persecution of, in 

England, 1066- 

John Ball, 
Joan of Arc, born, 
died, 
Joseph sold and taken to 

Kgypt, . _ 

Joseph, Prime M mister of 

Pharaoh, 
Justinian began to reign. 
Jutes, Invasion by. 



1732 A.D. 




1809 A.D. 


342 




II 


622 A.D. 


80 


1400 B.C. 


38 


1572 A.D. 


253 


1590 A.D. 


254 


484 B.C. 


13 


1738 A.D. 




1822 A.D. 


342 


776 A.D. III-I2 


900 B.C. 


38 


1769 A.D. 




1859 A.D. 


344 




251 



[765 A.D. 


203 




194 


1776 A.D. 


206 


1480 A.D. 


229 


158S A.D. 


179 


1451 B.C. 


24 




24 


336 B.C. 


39 




201 



1603 A.D. 
1685 A.D. 
1607 A.D. 
1806 A.D. 

70 A.D. 



1399 A.D. 



I410 A.D. 
I431 A.D. 



527 A.D. 
410 A.D. 



Kepler, John, born, 1571 a.d. 

died, 1630 A.D. 

Knights of Calatrava, 1164 a.d. 

Krapotkine assassinated, 1879 a.d. 



J 70 
181 



168 
173 



X729 B.C. 21 



72 
163 



343 
229 
373 



400 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Lafayette sailed for Ame- 
rica, 

Lancaster House began to 
reign, 

Latimer, born, 

burned at the stake. 

League of Lombardy, 

Lee surrendered, 

Les Gueux, 

Liebig, Justus, Baron von, 
born. 

Life in Germany during 
the Reformation, 

Life in France under Louis 

x:v.. 

Life at the Court of Char- 
lemagne, 

Life in Italy and Spain in 
the Middle Ages, 

Life of the Israelites, 

Life among the Ancients, 

Lincoln assassinated, 

Lincoln surrendered, 

Linnaeus, Carl, born, 
died, 

Livingstone, 

Locke, John, born, 
died, 

London, Life in, 

London Bridges, 

Long Island, Battle, 

Louis XVI., France, im- 
prisoned, 

Louis XVI. executed, 

Louis XIV., 

Louis Philippe, 

Luther, born, 

Luther at Worms, 

Liitzen, Battle, 

M 

Macedonian Empire 

founded. 
Magna Charta signed, 
Mahomet's Creed, 
Mahomet, born, 
Mahomet told his strange 

Story, 
Mahomet, Hegira, or 

Flight, 
Mahomet began to convert 

by the Sword, 
Mahomet occupied Mecca, 
Mahomet died. 
Major Andrd captured, 
M. Mariette, 
Mary, Queen of Scots, 

executed, 
Mary of England I., born, 
died, 
Mars La-Tour, Battle, 
Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew, 
Melancthon at Augsburg, 
Merovingians and their 

Mayors, 



DATE. PAGE. 


1777 A.D. 


213 


lagg A.D. 


170 


1470 A.D. 




1555 A.D. 


178 


I167 A.D. 


144 


1865 A.D. 


352 


1566 A.D. 


246 



1 A.D. 344 





226 




25-3' 




18 


1S65 A.D. 




1779 A.D. 


217 


1707 A.D. 




1778 A.D. 


309 




377 


1632 A.D. 




1704 A.D. 


307 




192 




391 


1776 A.D. 


211 


1792 A.D. 


278 


1793 A.D. 


310 


1678 A.D. 


283-4 


1830 A.D. 


372 


1483 A.D. 


232 


1521 A.D. 


235 


1632 A.D. 


260 


306 B.C. 


38 


1215 A.D. 


171 




83 


591 A.D. 


80 


611 A.D. 


80 


622 A.D. 


81 


624 A.D. 


81 


629 A.D. 


82 


632 A.D. 


83 


1779 A.D. 


217 


18S4 A.D. 


12 


1587 A.D. 




1515 A.D. 




1558 A.D. 


178 


1870 A.D. 


36s 


1572 A.D. 


250 


1530 A.D. 


336 



85 



DATE. PAGE. 
1870 A.D. 363-4 
1608 A.D. 
1674 A.D. 
I719 A.D. 



Metz, Battle, 
Milton, John, born, 
died, 
Mississippi Co., 
Mounds of Mesopotamia, 
Monmouth Court House, 

Battle, 177S A.D. 

Moors expelled from Spain, 
Mortgarten, Battle, 1315 a.d. 

Mozart, J. C. W. A., born, 1756 a.d. 
died, 1792 A.D. 
Munzer'sWar, 1529 a.d. 



N 

Nantes Edict passed, 

Nantes Edict revoked. 

Napoleon I. made Empe- 
ror, il 

Napoleon I., at the Height 
of his Power, 

Napoleon I., Campaign to 
Russia, 

Napoleon III., Emperor, li 

Naville, 

Navy, English, 

New Orleans, Battle, 

Newton, Sir Isaac, born, 
died. 

Nihilism, 

Nineveh founded by Nim- 
rod, 

Norman Life, 

Norman Rule began, 

Norsemen, 

Nullification in South Caro- 
lina, 



307 



214 
150 
132 

341 
241 



1683 A. 
I04 A.D 



I8II A. 
I52 A.D 
1888-9 

181S A. 
1642 A. 
1727 A. 



D. 255 

). 28.1 

■ 323-72 

D. 327 

D. 224 

■ 337-72 
A.D. 12 

194 
D. 224 
D. 



224s B.l 
1066 A.] 



308 
371 

36 
175 

i58 
io3 



1831 A.D. 346 



o 



Oates's,Titus, Papist Plot, 1666 a.d. 18 
Odoacer sacked Rome, 476 a.d. 

Osirtasen ruled Egypt, 2000 b.c. 

Ostrolenka, Battle, 1831 a.d. 

Otho the Great, 936 a.d. 

Ottoman or Othman, 1299 a.d. 



64 
33 
102 
341 
152 



Panama Canal, 

Pericles, 469 B.C. 

Persecution of Diocletian, 64 a.d. 

Persecution of Septimus, 202 a.d. 

Persecution of Trajan, 249 a.d. 

Persecution of Valerian, 258 a.d. 

Persecution of Diocletian 

and Maximum, 303 a.d. 

Peter the Great, Russia, 1683 a.d. 

Peter the Great, Russia, 

died, 1729 a.d. 

Peru conquered by Pi- 

zarro, 1535 a.d. 

Pizarro, Francisco, 1524-28 a.d. 

Phoenicians, 

Plague, Black, in Eng- 
land, 1361-2A.D. 

Plague, London, 1665 a.d. 



386 

49 
52 
52 
53 

S3 

289 

294 

199 
199 



r27 
184 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



401 



Plantagenets beg- an to 
reign, 

Phoenicians, 

Plot, Gunpowder, 

Plot, Papist, 

Poland, Revolution, 

Polycarp suffered Martyr- 
dom, 

Pope, Alexander, the Poet, 
born, 
died. 

Pope Clement imprisoned. 

Pope denounces Boycot- 
ting, 

Population, Great Britain, 

Possessions, British, 

Pragmatic Sanction, 

Prince Albert, 

Presbyterians, 

Printing Press in Spain, 

Prussia conquered by the 
Teutonic Order, 

Prussian Kingdom, Rise 
of, 

Pultovva, Battle, 

Puritans, 

Pyramids, 

Q 

Quebec, 

R 

Railways, England, 

Rastadt Treaty, 

Reformation began. 

Reformation, Dietof Augs- 
burg, 

Reform Bill passed Eng- 
land, 

Reign of Terror, 

Richard CcEur de Lion, 

Richard III., 

Ridley martyred, 

Richelieu, Capture of Ro- 
chelle, 

Rienzi, Roman Tribune, 

Robespierre, 

Rollo in Normandy, 

Rollin, Chas., born, 
died, 

Roman Arches, 

Roman Bridges, 

Rome founded, 

Rome sacked by Goths, 

Roman Emperors, Six at 
one Time, 

Romish Church Doctrines 



DATE. PAGE. 


I154 A.D. 

160S A.D. 
1666 A.D. 
1830 A.D. 


169 
161 
181 
184 
341 


167 A.D. 


51 


1688 A.D. 
1744 A.D. 
1527 A.D. 


308 
241 


l885 A.D. 
I710 A.D. 


377 
193-4 
194 
2qo 
i8g 
182 


1474 A.D. 


230 


1309 A.D. 


131 


17OI A.D. 
1709 A.D. 
1628 A.D. 


29.5 
289 
1S2 




391 



130 A.D. i8q 

1714 A.D. 288 
1517 A.D. 

1530 A.D. 232 



I83I A.D. 
1792 315- 



i6z8 A.D. 

1347 A.D. 
1794 A.D. 
911 A.D. 
l66l A.D. 
1741 A.D. 



16-71 
170 

174 
178 

256 
147 
317 

08-9 



753 B.C. 
410 A.D. 



30S A.D. 



formulated, 
Ryswick Treaty, 



460-90 A.D. 
1697 A.D. 



Saratoga, Battle, 1777 a.d. 

Saxons Hengist and Horsa 

go to England, 449 a.d. 

Saxon Rule, 410-1066 a.d. 

Saxon Line restored, 1041 a.d. 

Saxon Life, 



39' 
390 
40 
60 



78 
286 



163 
166 
166 



DATE. PAGE. 



1759 A.D. 
1805 A.D. 
1771 A.D. 
1S32 A.D. 342 



Schiller, Frederick, bom, 
died, 

Scott, Sir Water, born, 
died. 

Seat of Government 
moved from Rome to 
Constantinople, 330 a.d. 

Sedan, 

Sempack, Battle, 1886 a.d. 

Shakespeare, born, 11564 a.d. 

died, 1616 A.D. 

Shemites, i 

Shemitic Tribes invade 
Egypt, 

Ship Canals, 

Slavery abolished by Eng- 
land, 

Slavery Agitation in U. S., 

Slavery Opposers triumph, 

Solomon. 

Spires, Diet, 

St. Jago Order, 

Stamp Act passed, 
i Stanley and Livingstone, 

Stuarts ascended the 
Throne, England, 

Stuarts, Life of. 

Stony Point taken by 
Wayne, 

Suez Canal, 

Sunday proclaimed a Day 
of Rest, 

Surrender of Napoleon III. 
at Sedan, 

Swiss War of Indepen- 
dence, 

Slavery abolished, by Con- 
gress, 



342 



58 
372 
132 

276 



386 



1833 A.D. 


189 


183s A-D. 


346 


i860 A.D. 


347 


1004 b.C. 




1529 A.D. 


236 


1177 A.D. 


229 


1765 A.D. 


203 




377 


1714 A.D. 


181 




181 


1777 A.D. 


216 


1869 A.D. 


386 


324 A.D. 


57 


1870 A.D. 


366 


1308 A.D. 


132-3 


1865 A.D. 





383 

A.D. 153 
389 

"3 

B.C. 47 



TaipJng Rebellion, 

Tamerlane or Timour the 

Lame, 1402 

Telegraph and Telephone, 

Tell, Story of, 

Temple dedicated, 1004 

Temple at Jerusalem de- 
stroyed, 70 

Temples, 

Thirty Years War began, 1632 

Thirty Years War ended, 1648 

Thomas Aquinas, 1227 

Ticonderoga taken, 1775 

Trajan's Bridge, 

Triumphal Arches, 

Trenton, Battle, 1776 a 

Tudor Rule began, 1489 

TuQors, Life in their Reign, 

Tours, Battle, 732 a.d. 

Tryon's Raid, 1779 a.d. 

Tycho Brahe, born. 1546 a.d. 

died, 1601 a.d. 276 



a.d. 
a.d. 

A.D. 

a.d. 



47 
391 
260 

266 
141 

204 
39^ 

391 

.D. 2II-I2 
A.D. 177 

180 
8S 

215 



u 



Utrecht Union, 



402 



INDEX AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



V 
Vandals sack Rome, 
Victoria began to reign, 
Victoria, Income, 
Voltaire, Francis Marie, 
born, 
died, 

W 

War with England, 
Washington took Com- 
mand of the Army, 
Washington Monument, 
Wat the Tyler Rebellion, 
Waterloo, Battle, 
Westphalia, Peace of. 
Wilderness, Battles. 
William the Conqueror, 
William the Silent, 



DATE. PAGE. 

455 A.D. 64 

1837 A.D. 189 
194 

1694 A.D. 
1778 A.D. 309 



1812 A.D. 345 

1775 A.D. 210 

1885 A.D. 392 
172 

1815 A.D. 331 

1648 A.D. 266 

1864 A.D. 352 

1066 A.D. 168 

1568 A.D. 246 



DATE. PAGE. 

William the Silent Mur- 
dered, 1584 A.D. 248 

Wil iam and Mary, Eng- 
land, 1688 A.D. 184 
William IV., England, 1830 a. d. 188 
Wolfe, General, 187 
William Pitt, 187 
Wyoming Massacre, 1780 a.d. 215 



York, House of, England, 1461 a.d. 174 
Yorktown, Battle, 1781 a.d. 220 



Zimisces, Emperor, 
Zwingle and Luther, 



1529 a.d. 



105 
236 



